Empowering financial inclusion globally

When mobile technology pioneer Michael Liberty founded Mozido Inc., his vision was to create a global payment platform that would unlock financial freedom for millions across the globe. To his credit as an inventor, Liberty holds over 40 patents and patents-pending, including a patent for mobile wallet technology, and his company was in the forefront of mobile payments with the launch of a mobile wallet back in 2007.

Mozido has since become a multinational mobile financial services provider. To further accelerate global expansion, Mozido secured $70 million in institutional financing in December 2013. "We have used those funds to establish operating companies in Africa, India, China, Asia Pacific and the Middle East to supplement our existing operations in the U.S., Latin America and Jamaica," said Mike Love, Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer at Mozido.

Building on core strengths

Integral to Mozido's offerings is its proprietary, cloud-based MoTEAF white-label platform, which stands for Mobile Transaction Ecosystem Architecture Framework. According to Mozido, the platform effectively combines mobile financial services, loyalty programs and mobile offers that are highly interoperable, work with virtually any wireless carrier or mobile device, and integrate easily with products from other vendors across multiple channels.

"MoTEAF is configurable and customizable – as easy as turning on a switch for each of our mobile services for payments, loyalty and offers," Love said. "Our mWallet provides payments and financial services capabilities to our business clients."

This has been a key differentiator for Mozido, since the stored-value account (SVA) feature within its mWallet allows the underbanked and unbanked access to financial services. "By using the SVA as a funding source in the mobile wallet, those without bank accounts can then perform mobile transactions," Love said.

A good example of this is Mozido's joint venture with the Jamaica Cooperative Credit Union League to launch JCUES, an SVA mobile wallet for Jamaicans. Mozido Jamaica CEO Kavin Hewitt believes that with nearly 70 percent of Jamaica's population underbanked, JCUES could transform the financial landscape there. He noted that Jamaican citizens with short message service-based mobile phones will be able to manage their own finances on their own terms without paying exorbitant fees.

Bridging all channels

The Mozido platform bridges diverse pieces of the payments ecosystem – banks, managementand oversight, merchants and consumers. "This concept is unique, as these groups don't typically work together," Love said.

And it is designed to offer tremendous flexibility in terms of payment options. Not only does theplatform support most legal tender and currencies across the globe, but it can also handle open-and closed-loop accounts for mobile payments, airtime top-ups, domestic and international remittances, check deposit and cash-in services, mobile bill pay, and branded SVAs.

While Mozido's payment technology solutions for ISOs and merchants primarily focus onalternative financial services, its other offerings round out the picture. "We also provide a fullrange of powerful yet flexible cloud-based loyalty, giftand rewards programs that create revenueopportunities from monthly services, marketing materials,collateral, customization and consulting," Love said.

Mozido's loyalty program incorporates predictive modeling based on shopper purchase behavior,and it automates the sign-up, point and credit tracking processes. Mozido recently piloted amobile loyalty program with an El Salvador-based franchise of the international Mister Donutquick service restaurant chain. The 18-location franchisereported that it had signed 3,200 customers to the loyalty program during its initial 30 days.

Also, Mozido's program, promotions, coupons and deals canbe shared directly through a branded mobile app, as scheduled by the merchant or customized based on customer behavior.

Mozido's B2B mVault is another program that can enhance business functions with built-ininventory management and invoice tracking features.Following its 2013 acquisition of PagoVision and, more recently, its partnership with SecureNetPayment Systems to power Mozido-built mobile apps, Mozido continues to emphasize financialinclusion while expanding through partner alliances in the United States and abroad.

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