More than 1,000 mobile money industry experts and speakers as well as 70 global technology providers will gather for a key conference in Dubai in November.

The annual Mobile Money Global Summit & Expo will be held as part of the Connected World Forum from November 19 to 22.

Mobile Money Global’s director Stuart Barker said the event is focussed on providing a full picture of everything that is happening throughout the global market and the full array of services being developed and offered by both banks and MNOs.

“The industry is starting to overcome the inertia around mobile money”, said Barker. “There have been a lot of deployments (124 with 92 more planned), regulators are becoming far more enlightened and banks are really starting to see this as an opportunity rather than a threat, with some launching their own services.'

This development has given rise to an interesting split between bank-led models and operator-led models, he said.

“Africa is the mobile financial services hub of the globe, but the mobile money trend is catching on worldwide, from the Middle East, Europe and the US.”

He said the industry still faces certain challenges such as forming the right partnerships and JVs to offer widely acceptable service and then driving adoption of these services.  Other challenges include creating interoperable and cross network services, agent selection, agent recruitment and incentivising new agents and agent exclusivity.

The event boasts a speaker panel that represents the who’s who in the industry, with some 100 speakers from banks and MNOs such as Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Airtel Chad, Airtel Ghana, Axis Bank, Bank of Jamaica, Barclays, Citi, Dialog Telkom, Digicel, du, Dutch Bangla Bank, Etisalat, Garanti Bank, Grameenphone, Indusland Bank, Mobitel, Orange Group, Orange Jordan, Orange Madagascar, Q-tel, Shaka Mobile, Stanbic Bank, Standard Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Telkom Kenya, Turkcell, UAE Exchange, United Bank Limited, Vodafone and Warid Telecom.

The Connected World Forum consists of three separate streams:  Mobile Money, Mobile Health and Mobile Life. - TradeArabia News Service