Anam, a Dublin-based company that has specialized in new styles of cellphone messages, on Monday begins offering a service they say could revolutionize money transfers.
The service allows users to choose a name from their mobile phone address book, type in “cash” with the amount to be sent and press “send” for a transfer to be made from their bank account to another person’s bank account.
An automated system calls the sender to confirm the person and amount being sent and, if confirmed, a text message is sent to inform the recipient that the money is on its way.
While such a service could be useful for anyone who has run short of cash while sharing a restaurant bill, the real target group for Anam is immigrant workers who send money home.
The analyst consulted for the article worries that – “these are usually people who do not really trust banks in the first place.”
Frankly, I worry more about prospects who trust their cellphones more than banks.
Remember when the “Tech Bubble” burst because too much money was invested in bad ideas… Like Pets.com and the notion that I’d order 40 pound bags of dog food over the net?
Cell phones… The new dot con.
Great idea that will probably turn out to be horrible. Now not only does a theif steal your cellphone, he steals all of the money in your bank accounts with it. You probably wouldn’t need to steal the cellphone either, text messaging has zero authentication and protection so it is probably pretty easy to spoof. Banks do horrible with their website security, no doubt they will do bad with this as well.
I don’t disagree with your analysis #2 – but, while lots of banks don’t especially work at security on their informational websites, internet banking sites are just about the tightest security around.
Google around and try to find an example of an internet banking site that’s been ripped off? I just tried – and got zilch in the U.S. and a couple in Europe/U.K. several years ago.
I can see it now…
Scanning and recieving OUTBOUND TXT before it gets to the bank, Changing a few numbers, and forwarding it. And it ends up in YOUR account, insted.
I still liked the interesting idea of Scanning to locate OPEN BT on Cellphones, then sending an Auto diel to them to call a 1-900 Phone number, registered to YOU…
Japanese already have electronic wallets integrated into their cellphones.
I remember this was the original idea behind Paypal. I remember having Paypal on my Palm III and beaming friends money for lunch.
Then they stopped offering that service when they figured out people would pay for ebay auctions with it.
Its a bad idea to try to merge banking with cellphones, in my opinion.
They are easily misplaced and add concerns like Bluetooth insecurity and you have a recipe for disaster.
I saw an ad for this on Belize television, through wwitv.com. They’re making big bucks off poor people with this one, just like those “check into cash” places.
BAD IDEA
The telecom industry needs some safeguards in order to implement this… currently there are none. This is going to be a nightmare for anyone who signs up for it