Virgin Money Signs Up Monitise For Mobile And Online Payments

Mobile money specialist Monitise is teaming up with Virgin Money to develop the bank’s mobile and online banking products.

The two companies have signed a seven-year deal which will see Monitise, which currently has 30 million registered users worldwide, help the bank with creating and improving future digital banking offerings as well as a range of mobile services.

Virgin Money will now look to build its own mobile and digital offerings using Monitise’s suite of solutions, which includes its Bank Anywhere, Pay Anyone and Buy Anything products.

Expansion

“We are excited to be extending our quest for smarter, brighter and better banking solutions with a partner that shares our ambition to bring unique, intuitive and valuable service features to our customers,” said Virgin Money CEO Jayne-Anne Gadhia.

“Mobile is an important banking channel that will help us maintain our growth momentum, and our partnership with Monitise and its network of partners will support us as we grow.”

“The Virgin brand is synonymous with success and ambition across all of the sectors it operates in, and banking is no different,” said Alastair Lukies, Monitise’s co-chief executive officer. “There are significant opportunities ahead for Virgin Money in the digital space. We’re looking forward to supporting the bank across a number of exciting initiatives in its journey to transform the way consumers can manage their money.”

The news follows Monitise’s announcement last week of a £49.2m investment from Santander, Telefonica and Mastercard as part of a deal to expand the reach of its mobile banking and payments services.

The deal will see Monitise work with Santander to build new mobile money capabilities for the bank, and collaborate with Telefónica to develop new products and services ahead of a major Latin America push in 2015.

Monitise will work with Mastercard on a variety of digital payments projects, including cross-border mobile remittance capabilities, mobile transfer solutions and cloud-based payments services for global businesses, all of which will gradually become customisable parts of the Monitise platform in the future.

Mobile money payments are set to become a major growth sector over the next few years as more and more consumers begin using their devices to complete transactions. A study by Juniper Research found that more than 1.6 billion payments across the world were completed using a smartphone or tablet this year, thanks to a surge in consumers using the devices for banking, money transfer and online shopping services.

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