Utiba Continues to Enhance Mobile Financial Services Offering by Adding i2c Processing Technology to Converging Payments Strategy
MIAMI, FL–(Marketwire – Oct 1, 2012) – Utiba, a leading provider of mobile financial services solutions, and i2c, a payment processing technology company, have partnered to provide enhanced mobile financial services in the Americas region. The partnership with i2c gives Utiba’s customers the ability to issue a card, both physical and virtual, that expands the use and acceptance of Utiba’s mobile wallet at ATM machines, retail points of sale (POS) and for online purchases. These card products can be debit, credit and prepaid.
Utiba’s customers — financial institutions, mobile network operators and payment service providers — will benefit from increased end user adoption and usage, increased transaction revenues and an enhanced user experience. In the Americas region, Utiba’s customers are located in Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guatemala, Honduras, and Peru, with additional countries in deployment. Utiba expects to have broad regional coverage in the Americas by the end of 2013, serving a potential market of over 600 million mobile and internet users and a population of over 900 million people.
Converging Payments
The relationship with i2c is another integral piece of Utiba’s Converging Payments Strategy which was launched earlier this year with the announcement of the company’s participation in MasterCard’s Mobile Money Partnership. Utiba’s strategy calls for the expansion of mobile financial services beyond a basic tool of financial inclusion for the “unbanked,” a population estimated by the World Bank at 2.5 billion people worldwide. Partnerships with companies like MasterCard, Validsoft, and now i2c, permit Utiba to extend the acceptance of the mobile wallet and create more sophisticated mobile financial services, both of which increase mobile wallet adoption and transaction rates.”
“Issuing a companion card linked to the mobile wallet expands the payment network to include existing points of sale (POS), ATMs and other outlets. This helps our customers to provide their end users with an existing payment ecosystem and acceptance network while building out their own agent networks. Our relationship with i2c is designed to give our customers the shortest possible time-to-revenue and growth,” noted Utiba regional CEO Henryk Dabrowski.
“It’s an exciting opportunity to support Utiba in their Converging Payments initiative,” said Jim Ackerson, senior vice president of i2c. “i2c’s technology adds immediate and additional value to the robust mobile product suite that Utiba offers. Using i2c’s one global platform, Utiba can quickly roll out companion card service across the Americas region.”
About i2c Inc.
i2c is a global provider of highly-configurable banking and payment solutions. Using i2c's proprietary building block technology, clients can easily create and manage a comprehensive set of solutions for credit, debit, prepaid, lending and more, quickly and cost-effectively. i2c delivers unparalleled flexibility, agility, security and reliability from a single, global SaaS platform. Founded in 2001, and headquartered in Silicon Valley, i2c's next-generation technology supports millions of users in more than 200 countries/ territories and across all time zones.
For more information, visit i2cinc.com and follow us at @i2cinc.
About Utiba, Inc.
Utiba has spent more than a decade developing the leading mobile financial services solutions in the market, in pursuit of its vision of enabling everyone to make mobile payments. In use in more than 30 countries, the Utiba Mobility platform supports 660 million subscribers and processes over 12 billion transactions per year, enabling people to send money, pay bills, receive salaries and more, all from their mobile phone. Privately held Utiba is headquartered in Singapore, with seven regional sales, service and development offices worldwide. Utiba has partnered in joint venture with Alternet Systems, Inc. (OTCQB: ALYI) for the Americas region and with MasterCard, Validsoft, i2c, Oracle and others to develop and deploy more sophisticated mobile financial services.
For more information, visit www.utiba.com or follow us on Twitter twitter.com/utibamobility.
Media Inquiries:
Utiba
Erin Clancy
E-mail: eclancy@utiba.com
Telephone: +1 305.747.1339