NZ software company rated one to watch in US

A New Zealand software developer selling cellphone banking technology to the world has been named one of "Ten Tech Companies to Watch" by an American trade publication.

M-Com is a graduate of Auckland University's Icehouse business incubator.

Its software - enabling customers to do such things as check their balances, transfer money and pay bills using their mobile phones - is now in use by most of the big New Zealand banks.

Last year it won a deal to supply Fiserv, a Fortune 500 company which sells technology to more than 10,000 banks globally.

Thanks to the Fiserv deal Bank Technology News, sister publication of American Banker, has ranked M-Com number five out of 10 companies in its sector to keep an eye on.

"The last year has been an interesting one in the mobile banking world, as players that used to lead the pack appeared to struggle and newcomers booked deals that gave them major leverage in the United States market," it said.

M-Com head of marketing Serge van Dam admitted the recession meant things were quiet in the US banking industry at the moment.

But it was not all doom and gloom, as banks were looking for ways to cut costs and now had "a real incentive to migrate customers off more expensive [service] channels".

New Zealand is seen as a world leader in electronic banking and has been an early adopter of technology such as cellphone banking. This is in contrast to the United States where more than half of all consumer bills are still paid by cheque.

Meanwhile, van Dam said M-Com had just signed a deal with Thailand's biggest bank, Bangkok Bank, and was also about to go live with a project in Egypt.

He said Southeast Asia was the company's focus and it was adapting its software to meet the particular requirements of developing countries.

Whereas in markets like the US the use of self-service technologies was about cutting costs, "in Asia it's really about growing your customer base and growing transactional revenues".

M-Com had also "stumbled upon" a deal in Britain and had been contacted by a major bank in Russia.