What’s the news from the MEF community? Here’s your weekly round up of all the latest announcements from MEF members including product launches, partnerships, research insights and more…
Barclays takes on fraud – via its app
Barclays will uses the Barclays Mobile Banking app to give UK customers more control over how their cards are used.
In a new initiative it will let customers decide use the app like a kind of control room. They can decide where and how their card works, set a daily ATM cash withdrawal limit, and turn off online card purchases.
The move if part of a £10m nationwide drive to increase the public’s awareness of financial fraud risks.
Ashok Vaswani, Chief Executive of Barclays UK, said: “I believe the need to fight fraud has now become a national resilience issue, and we all need to boost our digital safety levels in order to close the gap.”
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Mahindra Comviva/TerraPay boosts cross-border money transfers in Tanzania
Tanzanian migrants across the world can now send money home to any one of the country’s four mobile wallets.
They can do so thanks to payment network TerraPay, which has received a first of its kind license to transfer cross-border remittances in Tanzania.
TerraPay, which is incubated by Mahindra Comviva, has partnered with mobile money aggregator Selcom. Their system lets Tanzanians in the UK, France, Italy, Canada, US, South Africa and other countries send money to Vodacom M-Pesa, Tigo Pesa, Airtel Money and Zantel Ezy Pesa Mobile Money accounts.
Tanzania has 18m mobile wallet users. According to World Bank, Tanzania received $390 million in 2015 from over four million ex-patriates living abroad.
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SpotX celebrates ten years with new .tv web address
For its tenth birthday, SpotX has treated itself to a new web address reflecting its video heritage – SpotX.tv.
SpotX provides mobile advertising, and it does so with a particular focus on broadcasters. It believes the new suffix suits it better.
Mike Shehan, CEO and Co-Founder of SpotX, said: “For SpotX, .tv stands for total video – serving ads on all screens – desktop, mobile and OTT devices. SpotX.tv helps drive this message throughout the industry and keeps SpotX as a focal point in video screen convergence.”
SpotX has than 370 employees in ten offices across the US, EMEA and JAPAC. Customers include Thomson Reuters, Mediacorp, VICE, Time Inc and more.
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Etisalat and U2opia trial sponsored data in Nigeria
Nigerian mobile customers will get the chance to try content with no data tariff thanks to a deal between U2opia Mobile and MNO Etisalat.
They’ve launched FonePass, which points to free data offerings on popular ecommerce, online classified and taxi apps in the region.
The free data is sponsored by corporates, which can use a platform called DataPass to place their brands alongside popular content.
Adebisi Idowu, VP of marketing at Etisalat Nigeria, said: “Our goal is to create more value for our customers by improving quality, reducing cost and introducing innovation. By getting more people online, we hope to empower Nigerians to reach their potential and thereby stimulate the economy”.
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Twilio grossed $87.4 million in Q1
Recently IPOd Twilio increased its quarterly revenues by 47 per cent year on year.
In its recent financials, it reported revenue of $87.4 million for 1Q 2017, which represents a big year on year improvement. Despite that, Twilio disclosed a $14.8 million loss from operations.
The company also revealed it has 40,696 active customer accounts as of March 31, 2017, compared to 28,648 as of March 31, 2016.
“We made continued progress across a number of our key initiatives in the first quarter, delivering further product innovation and adding new customers of all types at a rapid pace around the globe,” said Jeff Lawson, Twilio’s CEO.
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Opera’s data-saving Android browser targets Facebook
Mobile web users can make big data savings, especially on Facebook, with Opera’s newest version of Max.
The latest Android app browser features a new design, and also offers useful tips for better data usage in the form of cards. It reserves special attention for Facebook, which is typically a huge data consumer.
Opera Max directs users to the mobile web version of Facebook, which is lighter on data and power than the native app.
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