CPNI (CPNI), an IBM Business Partner, today announced a working agreement with Prosa (Promoción y Operación, S.A. de C.V.), the largest provider of electronic transactions in Latin America.
In the terms of the agreement, PROSA will provide financial institutions in Mexico with the centralized payments processing backbone for CPNI's Phone Authorized Transfer (PAT) mobile payment solutions.
PAT global, bank-branded mobile solutions enable bank customers to make payments and transfers or access banking services using a mobile phone. PAT offerings feature global mobile payment message routing, which empowers banks to offer person to person and person to merchant remote payments and transfers as well as mobile banking services. Banks are able to leverage their existing accounts, security processes and settlement channels.
Customers download a bank-branded Java application to their mobile phone, providing access to all PAT services available from their bank. Other interfaces are also available. To make transfers or purchases, customers simply provide the recipient's or merchant's telephone number, select a bank account or credit card and enter the amount of the transaction.
PATsend (e.g. remittances, parents to students) allows people to send money to other people using their phone. Prompting the consumer through the transfer process, PATsend enables intra and interbank account transfers, and transfers to unregistered users, anywhere in the world.
PATbuy (e.g. prepaid mobile phone top-up, movies) allows bank customers to make purchases at participating merchants around the world using their phone. PATbuy offers customers access to a limitless number of merchants from a single application on their phone. Registered merchants can immediately accept payments from all PATbuy consumers.
PATbank (e.g. pay bills, view statements) delivers a range of dynamic mobile banking services to the customer through their phone. Customers can choose from a selection of available banking activities for instant account administration.
With 36 years of experience in the payment market, PROSA operates one of the most important payment switches in the world, pd, processing more than 800 million transactions annually, the largest volume of electronic transactions in Latin America. PROSA facilitates the majority of transactions made in point of sale terminals throughout Mexico and Latin America, including American Express, Visa and MasterCard, as well as the ATM's of HSBC, Santander, Scotiabank, Banorte, Banjercito, Banca Afirme, Interacciones, Ixe, Invex and Banregio in Mexico.
"Today's announcement of our partnership with PROSA and the addition of a node to the PAT global mobile payments network is an important step forward," comments Patrick Bird, president and CEO of CPNI Inc. "PROSA has the power to help deliver PAT solutions to the Mexican banking community and make convenient mobile transfers and payments a reality for the people of Mexico. USD $25 billion in remittances flowed into Mexico last year, which does not include undocumented money transfers. PAT gives banks an innovative way to reclaim ground lost in this market and compete against alternative money transfer organizations, while also providing mobile banking services and a new way of making merchant purchases."
As a bank-branded service, PAT solutions engender trust from consumers since they are using a product offered by their own bank. The PAT family of solutions makes it easy for banks to accelerate the number of mobile transactions performed by their customers by giving these customers access to a limitless number of people and merchants to whom they can send money.