Thursday, June 21, 2007

Obopay: The new way to send money


Here's an interesting new way to send money - it's called Obopay and its supposed to be the easy way to send money - through your cell phone. Currently, the main option for sending money to other parts of the US and the world is through traditional money transfer services such as Western Union and Moneygram. While pretty widespread, these services have a drawback in the fact that you have to physically go to a brick-and-mortar agent location in order to send and receive the money. Enter Obopay. Started in only 2005, Obopay would allow you to send and receive money without having to go to an agent location. On Wednesday, Obopay signed a deal with Verizon, and apparantly can be used on any network in the US. By downloading the software onto your phone and putting in your pin, you are supposed to be able to receive and send money to anyone that has a cell phone. How that works for someone that doesn't have the Obopay service, I'm not exactly sure. But it is an intruiging new twist in the realm of money transfers and finance. Also, I'm not exactly sure how it would work in countries where people often don't have credit cards - Western Union's bread and butter. So it may be awhile before Obopay fully catches on, but it certainly seems like something worth watching. When I find out more information I'll be sure to keep you updated.

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