Financial identity provider Juvo has announced a new strategic partnership with mobile commerce enabler DOCOMO Digital.
The two companies will embark on combining both Juvo’s financial identity and credit lending capabilities with DOCOMO Digital’s payments platform for mobile carriers, OTTs and digital merchants.
Bringing these products together is expected to provide more financial flexibility for prepaid mobile users, especially in the emerging markets, as consumption of digital services and OTT content continues to rise.
“Juvo’s mission is to create the YES Economy, creating financial identities for the 68% of adults worldwide who are locked out of the formal economy due to lack of credit history,” said Steve Polsky, founder and CEO of Juvo.
“By creating financial identities, Juvo empowers our partners with the data to say YES to more of their customers, opening up new revenue streams.
“Our partnership with DOCOMO Digital is an important step in this, and we look forward to collaborating on products that have the potential to change and evolve the mobile payment and commerce industry.”
DOCOMO Digital already boasts over 200 mobile operators, digital merchants and payment providers on its platform. Users are able to pay for digital services as part of their post-paid phone bills or use their pre-paid balances.
Those in emerging markets often abandoned purchases due to insufficient pre-paid balances or the person(s) are unable to access conventional payment methods such as credit and debit cards.
Partnering with Juvo enables these users to complete such transactions with micro-credits extended instantaneously, removing the immediate need to top-up balances.
Juvo’s technology leverages “untapped” data sources to build financial identities and establish creditworthiness for unknown and underbanked consumers.
These identities can then support service providers (operators, financial institutions, and merchants) in understanding their customer and their financial position better.
“Our partnership with Juvo aligns perfectly with our endeavour to make the mobile commerce experience seamless for consumers, while unlocking more value for mobile operators and digital merchants, added Jonathan Kriegel, DOCOMO Digital’s CEO.
“While access to mobile and data services is growing rapidly in the emerging markets, the access to conventional financial services has not kept up. Together with Juvo, we can provide more financial flexibility to mobile subscribers in these markets.”
