Mozido eyes Caribbean mobile-money roll-out
Published:Sunday | August 25, 2013 | 12:00 AM
Avia Collinder, Business Reporter
With at least one tangible project in the works in Jamaica, Kavin Hewitt, CEO of Mozido Jamaica Limited, says the company will use expertise developed over the last three years to execute a Caribbean roll-out of mobile banking services and other products.
The company is the technology partner to Jamaica Cooperative Credit Union League on JCUES, the first private mobile-money product to be approved by the central bank.
"We have a 'white label' platform. Now that the Jamaica Credit Union e-payment services is 90 per cent there, we will leverage what was done here elsewhere in the region," Hewitt told Sunday Business.
White labelling means that the technology provider will allow companies to brand its products for use in their individual markets.
Mozido Jamaica's parent, Mozido LLC, said in a release last Friday that it is working on a new partnership with the Caribbean Confederation of Credit Unions. The confederation has 353 credit unions operating in 17 regional countries, which together service some 2.13 million members according to its website.
Mozido Jamaica is a subsidiary of Mozido LLC, which offers mobile financial service, retail shopping, and marketing solutions.
Mozido LLC will soon place on the market another app which will allow doctors to examine children and prescribe for them remotely.
"The next frontier is medicine. That will also require legislation and consultation with various government ministries," said Hewitt.
"We are looking certainly at Africa and other areas with a high poverty rate. Whether or not it has applicability to Jamaica has to be researched," he said.
Hewitt said that the Jamaican office, which employs five, is set to increase in numbers rapidly when JCUES begins to see take-up across the island.
The application, which will allow mobile phone credit top-up, bill payment and account balances and, pending approval, remittances, was created for 40 local credit unions with membership of 951,000 and savings of J$55 billion.
Mozido Jamaica has invested in the region of US$3 million in product development and operations to date. Hewitt notes that its biggest spend continues to be in research and development.
"The company is technology driven. R&D is continuous," he said.
In relation to the company's Caribbean push, he notes, "We are scanning the environment and looking at the various regulations which exist elsewhere. We do not want a repeat of what happened here. The first step is to assess the regulatory environment elsewhere."
The launch of JCUES was delayed for a year while the Bank of Jamaica crafted guidelines for the wider retail-payments system and mobile-money market.