Monitise Teams with BlackBerry for Payment Service in Indonesia (Feb. 11, 2013)
Feb. 11, 2013
Monitise plc today announced the launch of a mobile payments pilot in Indonesia harnessing BlackBerry smartphones. The new service will enable BlackBerry users to access a mobile money account on their smartphones and transfer funds among bank accounts and to other BlackBerry customers who are also signed up for the service, as well as top up their mobile accounts. The service, dubbed BBM Money, is the first to harness the instant-messaging service BlackBerry Messenger, according to Monitise.
Indonesia’s PermataBank is the financial institution anchoring the pilot, with the support of PT AGIT Monitise Indonesia, a joint venture between Monitise Asia Pacific and Astra Graphia Information Technology, part of Astra International Group, Monitise said. “BBM Money is rolling out via a commercial pilot for BlackBerry smartphones in [Indonesia]ahead of a full launch,” a Monitise spokesperson tells Paybefore. Monitise has been working on the project since mid-2011, the company said. The effort underscores “how businesses with different commercial needs can collaborate in the fast-growing mobile, payments and banking space” to develop “a person-to-person payment service such as this,” said Darren Sugden, Monitise’s chief executive for Asia Pacific.
Ontario, Canada-based BlackBerry last month officially changed its corporate name, formerly Research In Motion, to align with its core handheld device brand and introduced BlackBerry 10, a new mobile computing platform. London-based Monitise, which is developing mobile banking services around the world, a year ago formed a joint venture with Visa Inc. to create Movida, which initially is providing mobile payments services to customers of India’s HDFC Bank.
