Wasnt the greatest of years for my predictions, however some showed movement in my direction but the jury is still largely out... hold tight.. 5 New predictions coming any day :)
1. NFC goes mainstream in 2011
Well - obviously it didnt go "mainstream" in a big way, but we saw the google wallet, more MNO JV's (we also saw a few fall apart, or almost fall apart), more banks go RFID (including one in a 3rd world country :o) and we saw even PayPal play around with NFC in Europe. So while these initiatives are hardly the same thing as a mainstreaming of NFC, I think that most of the baseline is now in place, the battles between stakeholders are more or less settled and hopefully the spur of new NFC devices and NFC UICC's (Smart SIMs) will propagate early to mid next year.
(Call to action to all those MNOs that are not ready - get ready, and get ready quick)
2. The year m-pesa is no longer the poster child
Hmm, not sure, the reports on m-pesa has become fewer and further apart but I still believe that m-pesa holds the title. Especially Fundamo is a company that can really tell a good story around how to actually roll these things out, with a large footprint and growing market share they may be the ones taking over the throne from m-pesa
3. Acquisition spree
Not as many as I would have liked, but we did see Fundamo get acquired by VISA, Zong acquired by Ebay, Punchd by Google, MMV by Intuit, Point by Verifone (kindda mobile focused), Zetawire by Google and the list goes on. However, I didnt see the slew of "WOW" as I expected, still a good year for m-payments startups, next year will be better.
4. Demystifying Mobile Banking
Demystified - its a channel, if your IVR can support a function, so can your mobile channel, next....
5. Emerging Payments & Disintermediation in Direct biller infrastructure
Nope - surprisingly no-one is trying to grab this open territory, Citi GTS or somebody significant like that should be running to the hills to win this new frontier - perhaps next year? or perhaps its not sexy enough to get media attention, and the same 'ol folks may end up owning that space after all. Lets see
I would give myself 7/10 for this one, but I think that these predictions would give me 9/10 by the end of 2012 :)
1. NFC goes mainstream in 2011
Well - obviously it didnt go "mainstream" in a big way, but we saw the google wallet, more MNO JV's (we also saw a few fall apart, or almost fall apart), more banks go RFID (including one in a 3rd world country :o) and we saw even PayPal play around with NFC in Europe. So while these initiatives are hardly the same thing as a mainstreaming of NFC, I think that most of the baseline is now in place, the battles between stakeholders are more or less settled and hopefully the spur of new NFC devices and NFC UICC's (Smart SIMs) will propagate early to mid next year.
(Call to action to all those MNOs that are not ready - get ready, and get ready quick)
2. The year m-pesa is no longer the poster child
Hmm, not sure, the reports on m-pesa has become fewer and further apart but I still believe that m-pesa holds the title. Especially Fundamo is a company that can really tell a good story around how to actually roll these things out, with a large footprint and growing market share they may be the ones taking over the throne from m-pesa
3. Acquisition spree
Not as many as I would have liked, but we did see Fundamo get acquired by VISA, Zong acquired by Ebay, Punchd by Google, MMV by Intuit, Point by Verifone (kindda mobile focused), Zetawire by Google and the list goes on. However, I didnt see the slew of "WOW" as I expected, still a good year for m-payments startups, next year will be better.
4. Demystifying Mobile Banking
Demystified - its a channel, if your IVR can support a function, so can your mobile channel, next....
5. Emerging Payments & Disintermediation in Direct biller infrastructure
Nope - surprisingly no-one is trying to grab this open territory, Citi GTS or somebody significant like that should be running to the hills to win this new frontier - perhaps next year? or perhaps its not sexy enough to get media attention, and the same 'ol folks may end up owning that space after all. Lets see
I would give myself 7/10 for this one, but I think that these predictions would give me 9/10 by the end of 2012 :)
