Posted by Lisa Hochgraf
CUES' VP/publications Mary Arnold, is in Key Biscayne, Fla., this week, covering CEO Network: A CUES Member Quorum. Being near the beach sounds pretty romantic, but Mary's working really hard, capturing new ideas to share--like how to get 10 cents a transaction without being a bank.
For example, in the article she e-mailed me for review at 9:30 last night (and that was published on cues.org this morning), I learned about obopay.com, a company that creates accounts for people who want to send, withdraw or spend money using a mobile handheld device.
An Obopay account "stores money," the company's Web site says (see "open an account"), "but it's not a bank--there's no minimum balance, overdrafts or fuss." The company also offers card options.
Hang on! It's not a bank, but you can open an account and transfer money using your cell phone!? And get a prepaid card from it? The 20-something nanny I hired a few summers ago would have been all over this.
And so are two of the five daughters of Quintin Sykes, managing director of Cornerstone Advisors Inc., technology consultants based in Scottsdale, Ariz., and CUES' partner in CUES Tech Port. Sykes is the guy whose CEO Network session Mary covers in the article:
Sykes explained that, using Obopay, his daughter can go to a movie, realize she doesn’t have enough money for a ticket, text message Dad, have him transfer money to her prepaid Obopay card and, boom, buy her ticket.
A shout out of thanks here, to our partners at Cornerstone, for continuing to teach me new stuff and to Sykes especially, for this wonderful lesson.
After reading Mary's article about Sykes' presentation, I wanted to know just how much using Obopay might cost. While the company's fee schedule wasn't hard to find, it did kind of knock my socks off. "It costs 10 cents to send money, whether it's $5 or $500," the Web site pitches. The fee schedule is even more specific: the charge is 10 cents to send money or accept a request for money. Not too shabby if volumes get big enough.
Also interesting: The fee schedule specifically lists (first) the services that are free: signing up, receiving money, receiving money as a merchant, and withdrawing money to your bank account. Good marketing, too.
Needless to say, the headline on Mary's article seems mighty appropriate: Wireless Banking is Back: With more options than ever before. Let's keep our eyes open.
