Mobile money transfer goes international; exchange funds via SMS

First, it was PayPal. All you needed was access to the Internet and you could pay bills and make money transfers at your computer. Now, that same type of service is going to be available via mobile phones and SMS. Mobile banking is certainly nothing new and has been around for quite some time, but you were usually limited to viewing account information, transferring funds within your own account, and making bill payments (except Obopay, which allowed transfers from user to user). Some countries support transferring money between phones, such as India and the Philippines, but other countries and carriers are taking a serious look at adopting the service for themselves. Carriers like Vodafone are teaming up with financial institutions like Western Union to make these types of transactions and services more ubiquitous. If this catches on, it’s going to make money transfers, and life in general, a whole lot easier. However, like with PayPal, there’s no doubt that security concerns might push people away for a little while.

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