FinTech Top 50 names mPowa as company to watch in 2013

mPowa, the mobile payments leader in the UK that launched and gained phenomenal momentum in 2012, has been named by an independent panel as a company that is expected to dominate in 2013. The company featured as part of the FinTech 50 Watchlist – a list of innovative financial technology companies throughout Europe with the potential to become game-changers this year.

mPowa, which was the first solution of its kind in the UK, enables credit card payments to be made on a mobile phone or tablet via a compact Bluetooth device. The company has gained major inroads internationally and signed major deals with partner banks and telcos to roll out its patented technology. Even since the FinTech panel met at the end of 2012 to discuss the technology companies that they expected to make the biggest impact this year, mPowa signed a multimillion pound deal with Portugal Telecom in February.

According to a study from eDigitalResearch and Portaltech, 64% of smartphone owners have now completed some sort of purchase on their mobile – a figure that has quadrupled since June 2010. As consumers are opting to make payments on their tablets and smartphones more and more, companies are also responding with a demand of their own to accept payments in a flexible way through their mobile devices.

Dan Wagner, CEO and Chairman of mPowa said, “The most forward-looking companies everywhere have understood that mobile commerce is not an optional bolt-on to traditional commerce – it actually is the future of commerce. With the ubiquity of smartphone devices and mobile internet services, the number of mobile phone and tablet users accessing the internet is likely in many countries soon to outstrip those of PC and laptop users.

“Smartphones are also increasingly found in the hands of business users, which through the use of mPowa, becomes a mobile till. This offers traders – and therefore all those who facilitate trade, including banks and telecoms – access to millions of potential new customers and billions of potential new transactions across the globe.”

The company forms the mCommerce wing of the well-established Powa eCommerce platform. This gives mPowa a distinct advantage over its competitors as the time tested infrastructure has asserted the company as an attractive business partner to banks and Telcos from across the globe. Having signed multi-million pound deals with First National Bank in South Africa and Portugal Telecom, mPowa anticipates a highly productive 2013.

Dan continued, “In the eyes of many businesses, cash is no longer a viable option. Meanwhile, others have tired of oversized fixed card machines that have no other purpose besides collecting payment. The future resides, not just in mobile payments, but in an entire infrastructure that helps businesses to remember their customers and their preferences.”

The mobile payments innovation is expected to gain a firm foothold in the Asian market as it will be exhibiting its white-label solution at the Cartes Asia mobile payments conference in Hong Kong.