My Thoughts: Interesting times in mobile commerce in Sri Lanka

My Thoughts: Interesting times in mobile commerce in Sri Lanka: On last Friday , I saw Dialog launching a mobile point of sales service (MPOS). Today I saw that Hatton national bank ( HNB) also launching ...

Interesting times in mobile commerce in Sri Lanka

On last Friday , I saw Dialog launching a mobile point of sales service (MPOS). Today I saw that Hatton national bank ( HNB) also launching a similar service .

MPOS is targeted at the medium to small  scale merchant who cannot afford a credit card machine . There are many out there in Sri Lanka . They could not afford a credit card machine so far due to the rentals and the minimum committed business volumes stipulated by the issuer ( bank). With this solution all what the merchant need is the smart phone a the swiping component . 

Is this a banking product or a telecom product is million dollar question. However, the gap between a bank and a telco getting narrowed in the traditional transaction based products .

Apart from the technology which is available to all the banks , telecom and IT companies ,what is important in this business is trust , reputation and the distribution.

Both dialog and HNB are reputed an trusted brands in Sri Lanka. So the distribution is the key.

Dialog has a strong presence in SME so as HNB. In my opinion both are equally powerful in reaching the SME sector . Whilst dialog is the telecom partner in the SME sector ,  HNB could be the banking partner . So both are equally powerful in reaching the segment. So we will see this important battle in the MPOS.

Both HNB and dialog has taken some bold steps in mobile commerce field in Sri Lanka . Dialog being a technology company it could be assumed that the innovation is part of the organizational DNA. Generally , it is assumed that banking sector is governed by risk and compliance at the expense of innovation. In such a situation the ability of HNB is to challenge a telco is commendable.