In this Fireside Chat MEF CEO Dario Betti speaks to Stuart Wilson, CEO of New Zealand based A2P messaging platform Modica Group about their business and the current state of the A2P market in New Zealand and globally.

Asked about the maturity and growth of the SMS A2P Market in New Zealand, Stuart said: “It’s gone through similar cycles: a little bit of enterprise then premium rate, then regulation & customer service shutting down premium rate and security becoming a big driver.

Right now we would see most of it as around finance; 2 factor authentication alerts, customer service messaging, appointments, reminders. A really big growing trend in identity and payments. Media engagement, mobile originated engagement with media outlets has declined – the days of Big Brother and Dancing with the Stars and premium rate engagement have really declined.”

Asked about the issue of spam, and fraud in New Zealand, and how GDPR affected their business: “Because it’s a small country, spam, unsolicited marketing, phishing: the governments been very strong on that, so some of the fines around spam, you’re talking a $1/4 million and 2 years in jail, so its been a market that hasn’t suffered from large scale spam.

It was simple for us to fall into the GDPR framework, because we work in that kind of environment – I’d say we’re the ‘goody two shoes’ – we’ve never grey routed anybody, never spammed – even our apps are very onerous about unsubscribes and opt-outs – whereas I think the industry has suffered from people being a little bit cavalier, money making ahead of the right thing.”

Watch the full video below.