More Asia-Pacific Business For 724

Communications Today, June 4, 2002

Still trying to generate interest for mobile banking transactions in North America, Canadian mobile Internet software and applications vendor 724 Solutions [SVNX] on Monday added its second Asian-Pacific project in a month. Malaysia's Bumiputra Commerce Bank Berhad and Malaysian mobile operator Celcom are using 724's technology to enable Celcom's prepaid customers with Bumiputra Commerce accounts to recharge their airtime by through SMS messages.

Bumiputra Commerce and Celcom's offering is the first SMS-based prepaid recharging service enabled by 724. Celcom's prepaid customers account for about 60 percent of its 2.3 million customer base. Those prepaid customers with BCB checking or savings accounts can register for the SMS-recharge service by calling BCB's call center or use the Internet to log-on to the bank's mobile banking portal.

The prepaid top-up system for BCB and Celcom is the first implementation of 724's alliance announced in April with mobile applications developer QuickNet.Com. On its own, Toronto-based 724 in May announced that it would enable mobile transactions in Hong Kong for Bank of America [BOA] customers.