AsiaHawala powers Iraq’s “first” mobile money service with Mahindra Comviva
Iraq © Wikipedia
AsiaHawala, Iraq’s “first” mobile money service, has chosen Mahindra Comviva’s Mobiquity Money solution as it looks to expand its reach across the country.
The Iraqi company offers consumers a mobile account for a range of financial transactions – such as P2P transfer, bill payments, merchant payments, salary payments and a recharge service.
With Mobiquity Money it will be able to offer more services – such as “transferring funds internally and internationally in later stages”. It will also integrate with banks, billers, merchants and third-party payment systems.
Srinivas Nidugondi, SVP and head of mobile financial solutions at Mahindra Comviva, says: “As mobile phones become more functional, mobile money will clearly emerge as the financial solution for the unbanked. With only 11% of Iraqi adults holding bank accounts, AsiaHawala will help to accelerate financial inclusion.”
Currently, AsiaHawala says it is using USSD (unstructured supplementary service data – a protocol used by GSM cellular telephones to communicate with service provider’s computers) available across all types of mobile devices and will soon be adding new access channels.
AsiaHawala adds that its service is available to 10.6 million Asiacell (an Iraqi telecommunications company) customers – covering almost 28% of the total Iraqi population.
Mahindra Comviva says Mobiquity Money has clocked 65 deployments in more than 45 countries and processes 200 million transactions every month amounting to $4 billion.
