Mobile phones to be primary banking channel by 2015

2015 is the date stated by Brett King, author of the best seller, Bank 2.0 and advisor to some of the world s biggest financial services organizations and leading brands, for technology to come over traditional banking methods.

Banks have spent billions of dollars over the past decade developing and deploying technology that is supposed to give consumers a new way to pay for stuff, squeezing out old-fashioned cash. Yet as financial companies spend freely in a rush to the latest frontier, known as mobile payments, previous technology stumbles offer a reminder of how tough it can be to change consumer habits.

Security threats are advancing and transaction costs escalating, so banks systems must be prepared to meet the challenges of the new century. As volumes and transacted values increase, they need to update, implement and enhance their settlement systems, technologies and techniques to meet the escalating needs of their treasured and demanding customers.

PSRA 2012 is Asia's most informed meeting place for central banks, commercial banks, settlement systems architects and connected payment services providers.

As an increasing number of people now work overseas with mobile phones and internet access, mobile, e-banking

and newer payment technologies are seen as being powerful driving forces used to transact funds and this is what the forum will focus on.

Banks must update, implement and enhance their settlement systems, technologies and techniques to meet the challenges of the new century. The conference, held in Jakarta, Indonesia, is uniquely designed to gather actionable insights for regulators, commercial banks and private payment providers to achieve efficient and fraudfree transactions, monetise the new payment technologies, cut transactions costs and of course, networking.

Considered as one of the giant markets for payments, Indonesia experiences a surge in online shopping, and consequently electronic payment system that facilitates transactions between buyers and sellers in a digital world.

Comscore, a leader in measuring digital world, researched this and the result is internet visits in Indonesia went up to 72% in a year, more than other countries in Asia.

Online banking allows account holders to do financial transaction in the digital world, such as bill payment and fund transfer, which facilitate online shopping. Another popular service is e-money. While most banks offer e-money in card format, Non Banks institutions such as telecommunication companies offer e-money to transfer funds between subscribers, such as T-Cash (Telkomsel), i-Vas (Telkom) and Dompetku (Indosat). T-Cash has 5.3 million subscribers until first quarter 2011, grew from 4.7 million subscribers in the end of 2010, and targeted to have about 8 million subscribers or grow by about 70% in the end of 2011 (5).

On 3 May 2011, Indonesian Government introduced a regulation about fund transfer to public. According to this regulation, non-bank institutions that run financial transaction within the country have to be licensed (approved by The Government). Government officials said that the regulations was created to protect banks and customers and currently there were about 70 non-bank institutions that had the licenses.

Unquestionably, this is the most important meeting this year since main services providers such as Bank Indonesia, Bank of Thailand, Central Bank of the Philippines, Reserve Bank of India, National Payments Corp, Bank Negara Indonesia and PayPal will be present. Plus, Asian Central Banks will benchmark new payments methods in a matchless panel discussion.

Learn more about Payments, Settlements and Remittances Asia 2012 at:

http://www.arcmediaglobal.com/paymentsindo/

Arc Media Global is the world's first B2B/G2B integrated marketing specialist, with a mission to enable business development, innovation and sustainability in emerging markets' strategic sectors.

To get a promotional  discount for this event go to http://www.cardandpaymentjobs.com