Movenbank names Bales chief mobile officer

Banking start-up Movenbank has appointed Fundamo's Scott Bales chief mobile officer.

Movenbank, which is pitching itself as a mobile-centric, cardless and branchless bank, opened up an 'alpha site' last month to trialists ahead of a commercial launch in the second half of next year.

Bales joins the firm after a stint as SVP of partner solutions at Fundamo, the South African mobile money outfit acquired by Visa for $110 million earlier this year.

Says Bales: "Joining Movenbank is my chance to help the team to achieve its mobile vision by implementing totally new, third-generation, mobile experiences that will work for every customer and that will be fun to use."

Brett King, founder, Movenbank, adds: "His ethos of innovation and his track record of successful technology implementation will ensure great customer experiences with our upcoming mobile banking products and services."

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Comments: (1)

A Finextra member 15 November, 2011, 15:16

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Movenbank is following a classic strategy for unfolding aspects (mobile, in this case) of vast and established markets (like banking): formulate an entirely new company based on the cache of just the unfolding area. While the banking and c ommerce world is clearly not ready for any consumer to be entirely cardless, the strategy is sound because so much free publicity might be given to the new company (witness BankSimple).

One of three desirable outcomes are possible: 1) expansion into a traditional bank, 2) acquisition by a traditional bank, or3) creation of a industry software platform for other banks (witness S1 developing out of 1995's netbank) which in turn could result in another acquisition.

Don't be fooled: the succesful endgame here is very unlikely to be the worlds first mobile and cardless bank. It's about creating something much bigger.