Nigerians are now able to perform banking transactions on the go using their Glo Mobile phones with a mobile banking service that is truly secure, easy to use and provides a uniform interface to many banks. This was the result of a partnership between Globacom, Nigeria’s second national operator and leading mobile phone network, and InterSwitch, Nigeria’s leading transaction switching and processing network. The product called m-Banking, which is one of the services offered on Globacom’s Magic plus platform is billed to be launched on the 17th of December 2004 after several months of testing.

With the m-banking service Glo mobile phone users can now access their bank accounts in any of the banks on the InterSwitch network and perform transactions. Some of the transactions that can be performed include checking account balance, viewing a statement of the last few transactions performed,  transfer money from one account to another, recharging airtime to any mobile phone and changing the subscribers Personal Identification Number (PIN). Other transactions that will be added shortly include Inter-bank account transfers, Utility bill payments, contract bill payments, ticketing and much more.

The m-banking product was jointly developed by Globacom and InterSwitch and has been in live pilot mode for many months. The service is being launched before Christmas to allow Nigerians extra convenience to carry out their banking transactions during the yuletide season. This product is just another indication of both organizations shared commitment to the development of Nigeria through technology innovation as they have both clearly demonstrated in the past. For example Globacom was the first GSM network to begin per second billing, WAP, GPRS and Glo Direct Internet. InterSwitch also pioneered debit cards with online realtime access to banks, inter-bank ATM service (allowing customers of one bank to withdraw cash from another banks ATM), online collections and collection monitoring, true electronic commerce allowing Nigerians to pay on the internet using their online Nigerian debit cards.

This product has once again showed what is possible with the right technology platform and partnership.

To use the m-banking service, Glo mobile subscribers must first register for the service with any of the participating banks. It is possible to register with more than one bank and access you accounts in different banks using the same phone. All banks on the InterSwitch network are participating banks. The banks include Afribank, Bond bank, Chartered bank, First Bank, Guaranty Trust bank, Gulf bank, National, Oceanic, Platinum bank, Prudent bank, Standard Trust bank, United bank for Africa, Universal trust bank, Wema bank, Zenith bank.

Other banks where the service will soon be available include Continental trust bank, Diamond bank, EIB International banks, Equitorial Trust bank, Magnum Trust bank and Union bank. For more details of the banks on the InterSwitch network, visit www.interswitchng.com. The bank will issue the customer a debit card and link the card to the subscribers mobile phone number.

The Head of Glo Marketing, Subra Das explained that once registered for the service simply select the desired transaction option and follow the menu options till the requested response is received. The request is forwarded in a highly secure manner to InterSwitch which identifies the appropriate bank and queries the users bank account according to the request made. The only information the subscriber needs to remember is the Personal Identification Number PIN of the debit card.

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