Plextek Limited, a product innovation and design consultancy and RedCloud Technology Limited, an investor in mobile financial services in emerging markets, today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the Intellectual Property Rights of Iceni Mobile Ltd including the mobile payments system (the I2S platform) developed by the same team that brought the world’s most successful mobile money service, M-PESA, to market.
The acquisition signifies both Plextek’s and RedCloud’s commitment to the mobile money market. With the founding team, the companies plan to deliver the technology as a platform as a service and create a new way in which mobile money and associated services are taken to market.
“Plextek and RedCloud share a vision for extending the mobile payments value chain to transform the way in which financial services are launched in emerging markets,” said Ian Murphy, Technical Director and Founder of Plextek. “The next generation of mobile payments technology is about leveraging the power of secure cloud computing platforms; it’s about a fundamentally better way to recruit, manage and empower banks to deliver mobile financial services.”
“Our cloud financial services investment strategy is accelerating, and is at the root of the broad-based transformation and innovation we are seeing from customers today,” said Justin Floyd, Founding Partner of RedCloud. “The launch of the Platform as a Service model revolutionizes mobile payments through banks and mobile operators in emerging markets. It’s an important step to making technology available at a lower cost of ownership to those that need it most.”
“We are set to transform the way in which mobile money technology is delivered to financial organizations,” added Warren Carew, one of the founders of Iceni. “Traditional mobile payment software that many financial organizations use today was designed to work in an offline world. Platform as a Service will remove barriers to entry for future providers allowing them to accelerate their entry to market.”
Iceni’s core services provide robust authentication solutions for web access and mobile solutions designed for un-banked populations over multiple service channels. The services include proximity and remote payment services such as in-store or online mobile payment, money transfer, and more. The I2S platform enables banks, payment service providers, and telecom operators to offer accessible and secure financial services to anyone with a phone.
