Obopay is a pioneering service that lets consumers and businesses purchase, pay, and transfer money through any mobile phone using Obopay’s mobile application, text message or phone web browser in real time. As the first comprehensive mobile payment service created exclusively for the mobile phone, Obopay works on any phone and with any cellular operator to empower consumers and businesses with the convenience of secure, speedy and convenient mobile payments.
The concept for Obopay happened while Carol Realini, Obopay’s founder and CEO, was doing volunteer work in Africa. It was there she observed an interesting phenomenon: people living in some of the most remote corners of the world carried a mobile phone even if they didn’t carry a wallet. Combining the two seemed like an ideal marriage of empowerment and convenience. And that’s when the idea for Obopay was born. Obopay was launched in the U.S in 2005. Over the past three years, Obopay has had some spectacular successes which have validated it’s leadership in the area of mobile payments.
Obopay is bringing mobile payments to millions of consumers through several industry-first alliances. Obopay’s carrier partners in the US include Verizon, AT&T, BlackBerry, Cellular South and Helio and it has alliances with major carriers in India as well.
Obopay has a tie up with MasterCard to deliver fully-integrated on-demand person-to-person mobile payment service in the United States. The service, offered via MasterCard MoneySend, will give all new and existing MasterCard issuing customers the ability to provide an innovative mobile payments service to their MasterCard cardholders on all credit, debit and prepaid MasterCard-branded products. Obopay has also tied up with Citi in the US to pilot an innovative, real-time Person-to-Person mobile payments service. Known as the Citi-Obopay Mobile Person-to-Person service ,it will allow pilot participants to easily and securely send and receive money instantly via any mobile phone. Consumers will be able to remotely track and manage their mobile payment accounts by checking balances, viewing payment histories, and adding funds directly from their mobile phone. Funds received via the Citi-Obopay Mobile Person-to-Person service can also be accessed with a debit card provided with the service. Similar services with leading banks in India will be announced shortly.
Obopay announced recently an exclusive tie up with Grameen Solutions (the world pioneer of Microcredit) to launch The Grameen-Obopay Bank A Billion Initiative which will provide affordable financial services, including cross-border remittances, money transfer, payments, savings and credit accounts to the under-banked communities helping achieve critical financial inclusion.
By empowering life and work endeavours with mobile technology that is ubiquitous even in the most impoverished and remote corners of the world, Grameen-Obopay are bringing the full power of banking to those who need it most.
In 2007, Obopay was awarded the Fierce Wireless Fierce 15 Award, bestowed on the “most innovative private companies set to take the industry to another level.”
Obopay is a privately held company headquartered in Redwood City, California, USA and has several strategic investing partners like Qualcomm, Citi, Redpoint Ventures, Richmond Management, Essar.
