The Maldives Monetary Authority named its upcoming mobile banking system ‘Keesa’. According to Dhivehi Radheef Keesa is a Dhivehi word for wallet.
The Name was selected from a list proposed by the public via sms to the TVM variety show ‘Heyyanbo’.
This is a very Maldivian-Style name which is very much representative of this service
Mr Fazeel Najeeb, MMA Governor
According to MMA the service which was initially destined to be launched by mid 2009 is now scheduled to be operative from 1st February 2011 onwards. Sources also indicates this project costs nearly 102 Million Dhivehi Rufiyaa.
MMA central bank is to operate the Keesa during its initial 3 years since launch and later will be handed over to another party for operations. During this period MMA will charge its customers a system maintenance fee (which will be used to repay the loan) and the banks is also going to charge a service fee.
The Maldives Mobile banking system designed to bring a revolution to the financial sector and setting an example for the world is installed and setup by a United states company, Monteyran.
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Rhipha is a technology writer since 2005. Starting as a blogger his articles are featured in several blogs, Haveeru daily, Muraasil and also co-hosted a technology talk show on HFM 92.6 for a period of six months. Over the past 7 years he has been involved in many areas in technology and is currently the Project Director for Semicolon Pvt Ltd. Follow rhipha on twitter at http://twitter.com/rhipha
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My suggestion was “Jamaa”. But “Keesaa” sounds better.
Just knew that there is already an e-commerce website named as “keesaa” hosted on http://www.keesaa.com/ – their logo has the registered mark as well. Will there be any conflict?
You mentioned it cost nearly 102 Million, I wonder how affordable this service will be for e-commerce service in Maldives. Or will this be only targeted for over half a million tourists arriving to Maldives ( Higher than our Population ) and Huge businesses with no chance for SMB’s and Start-ups.
Today Opprtunity is really narrow for Local Businesses in Maldives.
*above comment is not a politically motivated statement
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Mohamed Latheef, ihecker ™. ihecker ™ said: Keesa – Mobile Internet Banking Service in Maldives http://bit.ly/dBmYps [...]
This sounds gr8 .. Like bassam said, how affordable could this be?
For me it’s all questions. 3 years in deploying, meaning technology must be 3-4 years old ? (questionable, example based on USSD, SMS, etc). Spending almost $ 9 million is it justifiable? Already BML have invested on Internet Banking. Mobile operators got infrastructure. Today (2010) almost everyone is moving to smart phones. If this trend continues very soon almost everyone (who would use mobile banking) will carry a smart phone. This again means you don’t need external infra to support banking applications (what you need in the infra on the bank side and a data connection). As far as charges are concerned I don’t feel it’s fair to charge anything extra for such a service than what is charges already by banks. We already pay for data connections. This money is a loan and one must wonder if we should really waste our money on such projects. MMA should not be the party who should be building infra for private banks with public money plus MMA should not act as a service provider.
This is my view and I strongly feel what MMA has done is just replicating infra which is already there with the banks and MNO’s.
example of mobile banking
http://www.maybank2u.com.my/mbb_info/m2u/public/personalDetail04.do?channelId=ACC-Accounts&cntTypeId=0&cntKey=ACC08.03.06&programId=ACC08.03-MobileBanking&chCatId=/mbb/Personal/ACC-Accounts
just a mobile app. Same concept as internet banking. Only difference is it works on a mobile and over mobile internet.
Mobile banking is nice, but whats the security measures they are going to take for the customers data? A Maldivian bank currently running an e-banking system has few flaws which were discovered recently and all the details were passed to the relevant authorities in the bank.
its been more than a month still they cant fix a bug which could lead to “phishing” attacks.
Can we trust on “Keesa” ? I have my doubts.
I do agree with sofwath. The only different thing which i came to know about this is the software allowing to convert the airtime into currency and directly debit that to the bank account through the mobile phones.
VISA debit card and cash card and AMEX debit card issued to BML customers , still its not applicable to use in online payments ? wont it be easy if that happens ? still the biggest challenge from teh shops that have POS is that BML charges a high omission, i really dunno what MMA is doing to raise the small and medium business industry. anyways this implementation from MMA may benefit the fishermen , but sum type of awareness should start i guess.
MIB which is given by BML still lacks dhivehi integration !
hi. it’s keesaa. with double ‘a’. thanks.