Banks seem to not be keen in chasing or acquiring low-yield customers so banking
infrastructure in the poorer developing countries has never been given priority.
Enterprising mobile operators in Africa saw this as an opportunity and by
utilizing systems originally developed for pre-paid balance management, they
were able to offer service to the great unbanked. In many developing markets,
CSSs are the more trusted parties to do business with.
Remittance payments from foreign workers to families at home have always been
expensive for those who can least afford them, yet enterprising telcos,
originally in the Philippines, worked out how they could offer their customers
top-up services in the country they worked in that could be converted to cash by
family members at home. Guess who they used to make all those calls home to
family as well?
Simply offering low price calls is easy, but not very profitable.
The need for creative charging and accounting models has driven the development
of real- time Business Support Systems (BSS) in order to monitor customer usage.
The subsequent profiling this enables means that these customers can be offered
products that will likely appeal to them rather than being bombarded with
constant offers that will most likely antagonize them. Developed markets are
only now realizing the importance of this but with BSS geared for the
traditional majority of postpaid accounts the task is considerable.
Doing more with less has allowed
developing market operators to create
high-volume, high-throughput, lower-
cost based BSS that is fast becoming
the envy of their more mature cousins
While the mature markets are looking to Near Field Communication (NFC) handsets
with the capability to be used for debit and credit card purchases, the
developing markets are happy to use SMS and WAP payment methods that utilize the
network and provide PIN security in real-time.
Mobile payments, or m-payments, are
wallowing in the developed markets
where all the players cannot agree on
who gets what share of the spoils, yet
in the emerging markets it has been a
runaway success. Mobile customers in
Thailand can not only top up their
prepaid account at their local
convenience store they can also buy
goods with the balances. In one case,
the mobile operator acquired the
convenience chain and now extends
loyalty bonuses between telephony
and groceries, e.g. buy bread and get
one minute free calls or some free SMS.
This can be best described as a 'live
loyalty' system offering instant rewards.
stuck, in many cases, with unwieldy
legacy systems. The emergence, in
particular, of Chinese network and OSS
technology and the massive role being
played by Indian systems integrators
and software houses may be the tip of
the iceberg. Emulating Western BSS
requirements is giving way to
introducing home grown technology to
a more accepting developed market
place. Letting the early adopters try
out new technology and then being
able to select only those that do
succeed is another benefit of not being
first.
Keep an eye on fully integrated BSS suites emerging from ‘developing’ markets
that include all the traditional BSS functions plus advanced business
intelligence, dynamic charging, bundling and provisioning capabilities rolled in
coming out of high volume markets like China, in particular. We may soon have to
redefine the concept of developed and developing markets altogether!
Pipeline Publishing, Volume 7, Issue 5
