Mobile payment industry: problems and opportunities

The main problem with building a new payment product or mobile service in the existing financial industry is that tens of thousands of pages of legislation and thousands of lobbyists are going to come down on you very quickly.

‘‘We needed a new technology to have the wedge to be able to enter the market, to be able to justify all the work to rebuild the system. 

Mozido has announced a two-part round of Series B funding of $400 million to accelerate the international growth of the company’s financial, payment and mobile marketing ecosystems.

The first $185 million has been funded by MasterCard, Wellington Management, H.R.H. Sheikh Nahyan of UAE, and Julian H. Robertson, Jr., chairman and chief executive officer at Tiger Management. The company raised a total of $265 million in capital over the past 12 months.

With nationwide mobile payment and marketing implementations in the Caribbean, Latin America, and the United States—Mozido is poised to use the strategic investment to further expand its global presence through additional acquisitions in China, India, Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East.

“The race for long-term leadership in mobile payments will be won with interoperable services on a global scale,”said Nick Adams, portfolio manager at Wellington Management Company, LLP.

Mozido provides mobile solutions for merchants, CPGs, financial institutions and government agencies. Mozido’s solutions provide access to services such as bill payments, airtime top-up, person-to-person payments, merchant payments, loyalty programs, direct deposit of government payments, and customized marketing via a basic SMS-based mobile device or a smartphone.