Globe, Smart at MMT confab

MANILA, Philippines - Globe Teleommunications (Globe) and Smart Communications (Smart) are just two of the major telecommunications and mobile banking proponents that will be represented in the annual Mobile Money Transfer (MMT) Asia Pacific conference and exposition to be held at The Hyatt Hotel on Jan. 18 to 20. Among the major speakers are: Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Deputy Governor Nestor Espenilla; Globe president and chief executive officer Ernest L. Cu; Smart chief wireless advisor and co-founder Orlando B. Vea; M-Paisa/Vodafone Fiji product manager Shailendra Prasad; and DiGi Communications senior financial services chief Vickneswaran Balasubranium. It was forecast that by 2013, there will be nearly half a billion customers of mobile money using services such as domestic money transfers, m-banking and international remittances. By 2015 there will be an estimated 894 million mobile money users globally and more than half of the customer base will come from the Asia Pacific region.