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.

Mobile payment future

People still prefer to pay with debit and credit cards because it's just as easy as paying with their phones. The result is that mobile wallets have not gained critical mind share among the public. Some individuals may use it at their local shop once a day, but it's a rare person that actively pays with their smartphone wherever they go. This behavior is not going to change any time soon, which means mobile wallets like Square are going to continue to struggle—at least until a more legitimate, easy-to-use and cost-effective solution comes along. 

Solution #1: PayPal-owned Venmo, one of the leading mobile P2P apps, says it saw $314 million in transaction volume on its app last quarter.

The problem is that there's little to no revenue earned by these mobile P2P apps in facilitating money transfers between people. But if an app like Venmo gets into the mobile in-store payments space — an area that still hasn't managed to take off — they stand to bring a big user base with them that's already comfortable paying via phone.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/a-new-crop-of-apps-could-finally-convert-people-to-mobile-payments-2014-5#ixzz34F2QMerX

Solution #2: PayPal's Braintree, led by entrepreneur Bill Ready, a veteran of two payments startups, is the most prospective service.

Braintree won Airbnb, Uber, and HotelTonight, and bought Venmo, a startup whose person-to-person payment app competed with PayPal's basic money-moving service. Unable to catch up, PayPal bought Braintree for $800 million

Others.

Boston-based LevelUp (formerly SCVNGR) has an interesting business model based on low interchange rates and marketing plans for its merchant partners, but its transaction volume is too small to make much of a difference. Interesting technologies mixed with mobile wallets like Loop have gained some mind share within the industry, but awkward implementations and nascent products make it more of a dream than a reality.

The latest news on this front is that Microsoft is adopting open source Apache Cordova—commonly known as PhoneGap—as part of its Visual Studio integrated developer environment. PhoneGap is a service that allows developers to use Web properties like CSS, HTML and JavaScript to build Web applications and then "wrap" them to fit in the native app stores like Google Play and the Apple App Store.

Only for women

Chinese social shopping platform Mogujie has raised $200 million in Series D funding from Hopu Fund, TBP Capital, Qiming Venture Partners, IDG Capital Partners, and Banyan Fund. Started as a Pinterest-style social sharing site in 2011, Mogujie launched a platform for retailers to sell goods directly to consumers at the end of last year. Mogujie currently sees over 35 million monthly active users
the SNS for buyers, provides service to all the female - See more at: http://www.crunchbase.com//organization/mogujie?utm_medium=email&utm_source=cb_daily#sthash.ZLDmrr32.dpuf

Cisco CEO: 'Brutal' Times Are Coming For The Tech Industry

John Chambers believes that the rapid pace of change in the technology industry is going to create a bloodbath for the major tech players, and every other company on the planet.

"You are going to see a brutal, brutal consolidation of the IT industry where out of the top five players, only two or three of us will be meaningful in as quick as five years,"

Cisco will come up with SDN products that will sell well in a market that won't be in full swing for a number of years yet.

(By the way, Cisco and VMware are also close partners, running $1 billion joint company called VCE together, so it's a delicate love-hate relationship.)

In the meantime, Chambers also predicts a general bloodbath for all businesses everywhere. He noted that only 24% of the companies on the Fortune 500 25 years ago are still on that list today.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/cisco-ceo-brutal-times-for-it-coming-2014-5#ixzz32x9ql2BQ

MEMEnomics: The Next Generation Economic System

Said Dawlabani understands that economic systems theory and analysis has moved away from the necessary holistic and societal level of thought. The author presents the idea of value systems as memes, and their evolution and organic growth, to form the overarching basis of a culture. While other economic theories tend toward rigidity and an inability to forecast the future reliably, memenomic principles are designed to predict the evolution of human thought and activity, environmental changes of all types, and human value transition.

Said Dawlabani offers an open values systems approach that considers the entirety of the system of leadership. The historical analysis provide for an examination of previous approaches including the failure of trickle down economic theory. The authors presents the importance of integrating human culture and values to meet the challenges of the modern capitalist system. The author divides the book into three major sections to provide a framework for study of the cultural values systems theory as follows:

* A whole systems view on the evolution of economies
* History of the value of a subsistence economy
* The platform for functional capitalism

For me, the power of the book is how Said Dawlabani combines a comprehensive examination and framework for his cultural values systems economics, with the prescriptive approach necessary for leaders to make the transition to the new economic paradigm. The author considers the societal culture and human values to form integral parts of the economic system. This inclusive approach to economic theory is lacking in the mainstream economic thought that has become conventional wisdom. The author demonstrates the historic and current failure of those isolated theories.

Said Dawlabani shows clearly how a cultural values systems theory is essential for navigating the current economic crisis, and to break the deadlock that has stifled the capitalist system. The author understands that economists must remove the rigidity of their theories, and consider societal and cultural evolution as an integral part to a holistic understanding of the economic system. With the road map offered by Said Dawlabani, the opportunity arises to establish a new form of leadership in both government and the private sector. The author also provides examples of where that transition is already taking place, and that existing economic theory is unable to cope with or describe the transformation.

I highly recommend the groundbreaking and very important book MEMEnomics: The Next Generation Economic System by Said Elias Dawlabani, to any business leaders, political leaders, public policy makers, economists, economics students, and anyone serious about establishing a more realistic economic system based on the ever evolving human culture, society, and environments. This book takes a whole systems approach to the challenges posed by the rapid changes taking place within government and the capitalist system.

What Employees Want

Instead of dangling career dreams and money in front of your team, you should instead focus on giving them OPI — Opportunity for Positive Impact.

"Money can even be an irritant if compensation is not adequate or fair, and compensation runs out of steam quickly as a source of sustained performance," Kanter writes. "Instead, people happy in their work are often found in mission-driven organizations where people feel they have positive impact on social needs."

If your employees are working towards something important and meaningful, they will be motivated to come to work and more loyal to the team and mission. Kanter says real motivation requires what she refers to as "the three Ms" — mastery, membership, and meaning.

Make them masters.

Kanter says a boss needs to give their employees an opportunity to "develop deep skills" and become a master over their work. Employees take pride in learning, so give them the chance to learn a new skill with appropriate resources. "Even in the most seemingly routine areas, when people are given difficult problems to tackle, with appropriate and tools and support, they can do things faster, smarter, and better," she writes.

Make them members.

Membership cannot be confused with exclusivity — your job is to make everyone feel welcome. But you should build a friendly environment where employees interact across departments. "Create community by honoring individuality," she says. "Community solidarity comes from allowing the whole person to surface, which means going beyond superficial conformity to know what else people care about. Encourage employees to bring outside interests to work. Give them frequent opportunities to meet people across the organization to help them get to know one another more deeply."

Give their job meaning.

Your employees will be motivated only if their job matters to the larger whole.

BERTRAND RUSSELL, the English philosopher, was not a fan of work. In his 1932 essay, “In Praise of Idleness”, he reckoned that if society were better managed the average person would only need to work four hours a day. Such a small working day would “entitle a man to the necessities and elementary comforts of life.”
Read more: http://www.inc.com/will-yakowicz/motivate-employees-with-opportunity-for-positive-impact.html#ixzz2omRDKfFt

How to hire.
Instead of answer a most common job interview questions
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw1ekqxULTs&feature=share

-give them a webinars on the emergent ITC with global mentors
http://mitpeople.org/index.php?id=aboutus

James Kuffner, Google Robotics

At a military contest in Miami, a Google scientist discusses the future of robotics.
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/523096/qa-with-james-kuffner-google-robotics-researcher/

And Christmas Story with robots
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B92k044LNm4&feature=youtu.be