95% of consumers would use SMS Money Transfer and SMS Topup services if introduced by operators

Dublin, 9th December, 2008 l Anam Mobile and TR2 Communications today announced the results from a recent customer survey that highlighted the consumer desire for services that allow a user to send money to a friend or colleague, or add credit to their phone, by sending a simple SMS.

Text messaging is a hugely popular feature of mobile devices with nearly every mobile phone user able to send and receive messages. Gartner, one of the leading technology research companies, predicted that as many as 2.3 trillion messages will be sent worldwide in 2008.

Services like SMS Money Transfer and SMS Topup tap into the level of familiarity that consumers have with text messaging by creating additional and useful services that are easy for consumers to understand and use.

SMS Money Transfer is a money transfer service that allows users to send money via SMS to any friend or contact. To transfer money, users simply type a text message starting with the phrase “#cash” followed by the amount they wish to send. Then they send the message as normal to their contact – directly accessing their phone’s address book, or typing in a new number if required. After a simple, but highly secure, verification process the money is transferred and the recipient receives an SMS to inform them of that.

SMS Topup is a similar service that allows for additional credit to be added to the phone’s prepaid account by sending an SMS. Messages start with “#topup” followed by the amount to be added to the account. SMS Topup can be used by consumers to add credit to their own, or anyone else’s account, simply by sending a text message to the relevant mobile phone number.

“We have always believed that consumers would see the immense benefits of services like SMS Money Transfer and SMS Topup and we’re pleased to be proved right,” said Gerry McKenna, CEO of Anam. “We’re currently talking to several operators who, like us, see both the financial and customer care benefits of introducing services like these.”

Anam has previously estimated that operators globally could increase revenues by at least €3.6bn by introducing SMS Money Transfer. While currently voucher schemes for prepaid topup can cost the operators as much as 9% of the voucher value, costs which could be eliminated with the introduction of SMS Topup.

Anam was recently named as one of three Top innovators in the ‘Most Innovative Mobile Application in a Vertical Market’ category by the GSM Association (GSMA) at the Mobile Innovation Marketplace – Americas event.