MobilePay success is great news for Bancore

MobilePay offered by Danske Bank in Denmark has fast become a huge success with nearly a third of the Danish population downloading the app to their phone. The app allows them to make person-to-person transfers and lately even payments using their mobile phone linked to their existing physical payment card, however only if issued by a Danish bank.

The fast uptake of this easy-to-understand service is great news for the electronic payments industry, since it has helped to lower consumers’ nervousness about this type of payment and increased the understanding of the advantages of mobile payment.

However, an important distinction is that MobilePay is only for banked consumers in Denmark, and was initially seen as a marketing move by Danske Bank, as well as a way of keeping international payment providers like PayPal and Apple Pay at bay.

For consumers without a Danish bank account and payment card, the service is still out of reach, and transactions and payments cross-border or cross-currency are not possible.

The World Bank has lately drawn attention to “the bottom of the pyramid” of consumers, by acknowledging that for financial inclusion to succeed globally, financial services are needed that can be used by everyone and not just the banked population. Services like PayPal and Apple Pay have the same disadvantage as MobilePay, i.e. they are only for banked consumers, and the need is still there to include the remaining unbanked population of 3.5 billion people.

Is there a service out there embracing everybody and allowing cross border and cross currency transactions?

Well, that is exactly what Bancore provides, and with 600,000 users already signed up and a pipeline of more than 50 million people, we see the success of a service like MobilePay as an inspiration and motivation for ways to achieve truly global financial inclusion – even for the ”bottom of the pyramid”.

Therefore, a banked solution like MobilePay can indirectly lead to financial inclusion for everybody, by showing the way for fast consumer adoption and by breaking down market barriers, eventually leading to a better understanding of a company like Bancore.

Brian Larsen, CEO Bancore