Latin American Operators Take Mobile Banking to the Masses, Pyramid Finds

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 11, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Pyramid Research estimates that the number of mobile banking users in Latin America will grow 65 percent between 2010 and 2015, from around 18 million users to over 140 million users, according to a new report from Pyramid Research (www.pyr.com).

Operators Take Mobile Banking to the Masses, with 65% Annual Growth Expected until 2015 explains Pyramid's beliefs that Latin America has achieved the right conditions to smoothly increase the uptake of mobile financial services, including banking and payments. Pyramid expects that leading mobile operators, including Claro and Movistar, will develop commercial offerings over the next few months in order to participate in an emerging market where mobile operators have substantial upside. Pyramid estimates that around 18 million users in Latin America use financial services from their mobile devices and that this number may rise to more than 140 million by 2015.

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Pyramid Research believes that Latin America has achieved the right conditions to smoothly increase the uptake of mobile financial services, including banking and payments. Banking penetration is low in Latin America, but by 2015 85 percent of the total population will be an active user of a mobile device, making those devices a clear entry point for adjacent services, such as payments, banking and remittances. "Technological advances are making the fulfillment of the promise of a broad mobile banking and payment service a real possibility," says Jose Magana, Senior Analyst at Pyramid. "Also, all larger markets in Latin America have more than 35 percent of their population under the age of 24, making this the perfect time for operators to focus on mobile banking services," he adds.

"Mobile operators will benefit from mobile banking in multiple ways – from more airtime purchases, more billable network traffic, such as data and SMS, and an increase in customer loyalty, thus improving the churn rate," indicates Magana. "They can help the system to be faster providing back-end services through their network, handling large amounts of data smoothly and bringing to their network handsets that are payment friendly by partnering with payment vendors, such as Visa or MasterCard," Magana adds.

Latin American operators can help the system to gain traction by leveraging its network of users and resellers to push for the service. "Operators can also make the process cheaper by cutting paperwork and economic inefficiencies," notes Magana.

Operators Take Mobile Banking to the Masses, with 65% Annual Growth Expected until 2015 is part of Pyramid Research's Telecom Insider Report Series and is priced at $595. Download the excerpt here: http://www.pyramidresearch.com/downloads.htm?id=5&sc=PRN051111_INSLA3.2.  It can be purchased online here: http://www.pyramidresearch.com/store/ins_la_110509.htm?sc=PRN051111_INSLA3.2. For more information please visit www.pyr.com or email us at info@pyr.com.

CONTACT:  Jennifer Baker, +1-617-871-1910, jbaker@pyr.com

SOURCE Pyramid Research