Nokia now has a minority stake in Obopay. The mobile-payment company enables people to pay for items from Obopay accounts tied to their mobile phones.
Berg Insight expects the number of people using mobile-banking services to grow on average nearly 90 percent annually. The market researcher sees the number of people banking this way to grow from just 20 million last year to 913 million in 2014. Teppo Paavola, head of Corporate Business Development at Nokia says “this investment reflects our belief in the global potential for mobile payments.”
Nokia, the world’s largest maker of handsets is looking to replace the wallet with the mobile phone. Communication technology has been developed already to be able to be swiped at cash registers and subway turnstiles. The move however is the first for the company to working with a payment service such as Obopay.
