KEY POINTS:
An Auckland company's multi-million-dollar deal to supply mobile-phone banking services in the United States may be the start of things to come, the Kiwi electronic payments industry hopes.
Cellphone-banking software company M-Com has signed an agreement with Fiserv, a Fortune 500 company which supplies technology to more than 10,000 banks globally.
"For a little New Zealand technology company it means we've snagged the biggest possible fish in terms of distribution and market reach," M-Com head of marketing Serge van Dam said.
It is the kind of deal industry group New Zealand Payments would like to see more of.
Set up 18 months ago with the help of Government agency New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, the group includes Provenco Cadmus, Paymark and M-Com.
Its aim is to promote and expand New Zealand companies as leaders in electronic payments to the world.
New Zealand is considered a global case study in how to do electronic banking and payments. It was one of the first to adopt Eftpos and remains way ahead in the scope and scale of electronic transactions - more than 50 per cent of all consumer bills in the United States are still paid by cheque, while in New Zealand that figure is less than 4 per cent.
"As much as we think that we've often got pretty good solutions and can do a pretty good job, New Zealand isn't the natural place people go looking for too many things other than bungy jumping and adventure holidays," NZ Payments chairman Julian Beavis said. "By banding together hopefully we can raise the profile more than we can individually."
M-Com achieved its success the hard way, van Dam said. "We cold-called every one of the top 100 banks in the US."
Eventually it secured a deal with Washington Mutual, one of America's biggest banks at the time.
On Friday, JPMorgan Chase bought WaMu's banking assets after it filed for bankruptcy.
Fiserv was not offering mobile-phone banking technology, and M-Com had to spend "a bit of time and energy convincing them they needed to get on to it", van Dam said.
He concedes the credit crunch is going to make life more difficult as it impacts on banks' willingness to spend on technology.
However M-Com is offering a pay-as-you-go model, where banks pay only per customer using the mobile phone service in addition to a limited upfront investment.
He also says self-service banking channels such as mobile banking and payments allow banks to reduce the costs of branches and contact centres.
M-Com was set up in 2000 and graduated from Auckland's Icehouse business incubator. Its software - enabling customers to do things such as check their balances, transfer money and pay bills using their mobile phones - is in use by ANZ, GE Money, National Bank and Westpac.
Eighteen months ago it decided to expand overseas. It now has customers in Thailand, Egypt and Canada, as well as in the United States.
The company's executives, including van Dam and CEO Adam Clark, have relocated to the United States, where they are establishing M-Com's sales and marketing hub.
Its product-development headquarters remain in Auckland. The company has around 25 staff.
GROWING STATURE
* Auckland cellphone-banking software company M-Com has signed a multimillion-dollar deal in the United States.
* New Zealand is seen as a world leader in electronic banking and payments.
* A new industry group is hoping to trade off this reputation to sell New Zealand services internationally.
