Nokia is Newest Entrant in Mobile Money Market

Nokia just announced Nokia Money, a new mobile payment service that will allow mobile users to send and receive money using their phone number. TechCrunch reports that Nokia plans to start roll outs in 2010.

The service will take advantage of the huge number of unbanked mobile users. From the press release:

Rural consumers will particularly benefit from money transfers and, for urban consumers used to online services, we are enabling services such as payment of utility bills, purchase of train and movie tickets, top-ups, all through their mobile phones. Nokia Money is simple to use, secure and available across different operator networks and on virtually any mobile phone. This means millions of new consumers will soon be able to manage all their financial needs from their mobile phone.

As it is just a press release, I shouldn’t be terribly disappointed in the lack of detail regarding how the service will actually work. The sector is increasingly competitive, with mobile operators, m-money specialists, and now mobile manufacturers all creating competing products.

Nokia is a particularly interesting case due to the ubiquity of its devices in developing markets. If the service really does to be operator independent, a challenge in African markets, Nokia stands to make a killing.