The Bankwatch

Banks continue to be challenged by disintermediation from telco’s and here is another example, this time in Japan.  The service will launch 21st July, and allow sending up to $200 with only the payee’s phone number being required.

An interesting tweak is the ability to have the money deposited with DOCOMO under the guise of a credit to your account, however this is deposit taking by another name.

DOCOMO to launch mobile payments service

Customers of DOCOMO’s i-mode™ mobile Internet service on the FOMA™ 3G network will be able to remit up to 20,000 yen (about 208 U.S. dollars) per transfer, basically just by inputting the payee’s mobile phone number. The payee receives a mail notification via their DOCOMO mobile phone and is given the option of depositing the money in a domestic bank account or having the amount credited to their monthly DOCOMO phone bill. The payee can receive remittances totaling up to 200,000 yen (about 2,080 U.S. dollars) per month.

It is a lucrative service with charges to payor and payee.

The charges per payment (including consumption tax) will be 105 yen for the payer and 65 yen for the payee.

Researched by Nobuyo Henderson

Just when we thought we were getting there with 3G here comes LTE in Japan, the next level.

Its not clear what the individual phone download rate would be, but it will be fast.

DoCoMo To Invest Y300-400bn In LTE Network

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

NTT DoCoMo President Ryuji Yamada

TOKYO (Nikkei)–NTT DoCoMo Inc. (9437) will spend 300-400 billion yen over the next five years to develop LTE (Long Term Evolution), the next-generation high-speed cellular network it plans to launch in the second half of 2010, said President Ryuji Yamada on Tuesday.

“The mobile phone market is entering maturity, but its functionality will keep evolving,” Yamada said during his keynote speech at Global ICT Summit 2009, an event hosted by The Nikkei and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

Researched by Nobuyo Henderson