Get the latest announcements from MEF Members across the mobile ecosystem globally in this weekly review of member news…
iProov and NOBID Consortium Chosen to Launch Pan-European Payments
A multi-country consortium of Europe’s most trusted identity experts, of which iProov is a key member, has been chosen to deliver a cross-border payments pilot, in line with the aims of the European Commission’s EU digital identity wallet program.
In September 2022, it was announced that the six countries involved (Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Latvia and Norway) would be part of the consortium, led by NOBID (Nordic-Baltic eID Project), to bring to life the most widely used of the European Union’s priority use cases for the wallet – payments.
Today, it has been announced that the NOBID Consortium will be one of four EU digital identity pilots, and will receive funding from the EU Commission’s DIGITAL Programme to commence the pilot from March 2023. The consortium will now go into a contracting and grant negotiation process with the EU Commission.
“iProov is delighted that the NOBID consortium has been awarded funding and chosen to proceed with the pilot,” said Andrew Bud, founder and CEO of iProov. “This project will prove biometric-enabled Verifiable Credentials can address the emerging challenges of the increasingly complex world of payments.”
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Humanising the Crypto World: Mobile Identity Makes it Happen
Gautam Hazari is a technology enthusiast and a futurist & is the CTO of Sekura Mobile Intelligence, the global leader for mobile identity services.
As a long term technology enthusiast, when I hear the word ‘crypto’ my mind thinks of cryptography and I need to override my thoughts and retrain my mind to translate that to cryptocurrency, and that is digestible; the word ‘crypto’ is derived from the Greek word, ‘kryptós’ which means “secret”, or “hidden”, so the word is perfect in its remit to “hide” another meaning, at least that’s what I use as a logical satisfaction for my mind.
We may keep ourselves fascinated with the discussion on who was the first to use the term ‘cryptocurrency’, and that Bitcoin was not the first cryptocurrency, but the fact is: we cannot ignore the crypto phenomenon – there is a world around it. As of July 2022, there are more than 20,000 cryptocurrencies in existence, although not all of these are currently active. Even if we discount these inactive ones, there are still around 11,000 active cryptocurrencies, and the market capitalisation is close to a trillion USD in October 2022. And with the recent events like the FTX meltdown makes the crypto world even more prominent and at the forefront of discussions in boardrooms and in dinner tables equally.
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Viber reports robust usage in PH
Rakuten Viber, one of the world’s leading messaging app, revealed that an overall increase in Viber’s app users across Asia Pacific (APAC) in 2022 year, with the Philippines recording a robust 22 percent increase.
Viber shared some data to show the main trends that defined how Filipino users and brands have been using the app in 2022. The communication app, owned by the Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten, has over 1B Android downloads worldwide and is being widely used both by users and brands.
Locally in the Philippines, 19 percent more users sent one-to-one messages compared to last year. Also, 19 percent more users in the country sent messages in group chats this year, revealing a strong preference for texting. Filipinos have shown a great interest in My Notes with 37 percent more Filipinos used Notes to sync to-do lists and media across all their devices in 2022.
It also showed that Viral and interactive, Viber Stickers and Lenses allow users to express themselves creatively while chatting.
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Infobip Appoints Vice President of Marketing and Growth to Support Ambitious Targets
VODNJAN, Croatia–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Global cloud communications platform Infobip has appointed Ben Lewis as Vice President of Marketing and Growth. Ben will lead Infobip’s global marketing and growth function and is responsible for increasing the firm’s market share and brand awareness to meet its ambitious growth targets.
Taking a customer-centric approach, he will ensure Infobip is positioned as the full-stack omnichannel communications platform for every platform.
His immediate priorities include launching Infobip’s One Communications Platform brand positioning across all audiences and channels to drive awareness. He will also enhance Infobip’s customer marketing and growth capabilities by, for instance, introducing new initiatives such as account-based marketing. In addition, by bringing together the firm’s marketing and growth teams globally, Ben will align all regions behind the same objective.
Ivan Ostojić, Chief Business Officer at Infobip, said: “Infobip is focused on profitable growth, and the marketing and growth team is critical to our success. But to achieve that success, every team worldwide must be aligned and focused on the same objective. Combining the marketing and growth teams under Ben’s new leadership unifies our end-to-end go-to-market functions from strategy to campaigns. Now everyone is focused on how they can help our customers succeed and, by doing so, how we can achieve ambitious profitable growth.
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Vonage Wins 2022 Aragon Research Women in Technology Award for Legal
HOLMDEL, N.J., Dec. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Vonage, a global business cloud communications leader helping businesses accelerate their digital transformation, today announced that Shenia Kirkland, VP of Commercial Legal Affairs has won the 2022 Aragon Research Women in Technology Award for Legal.
This award reflects the achievements of women who have demonstrated outstanding personal and professional growth and significantly contributed to the technology industry. Shenia was chosen for this award due to her leadership and ability to build consensus, resolve conflict, and negotiate expectations to deliver excellent business outcomes.
“I am so appreciative and humbled by this award from Aragon Research,” said Kirkland. “I feel that this recognition is a reflection of the hard work done by the dynamic and diligent legal team that I work with everyday, and the passionate leadership here at Vonage. I am so excited about what lies ahead for us all – the technology that we will build and experiences we will enable for our customers.”
