Category 1: The Connected Life Awards
1d. Best NFC/ Mobile Money Product or Service
NFC based Mobile Money services are rolling out around the world, bringing a host of innovative ‘cashless’ mobile services to users for the first time. From retail payments via NFC enabled phones, to m-ticketing, billing, banking, credit and payment services, the opportunities for the financial services and solutions segments, ticketing and transport industries and the retail sector – in partnership with the mobile industry – are limitless, as are the benefits of convenience and value for users.
The Best Mobile Money Product or Service award aims to recognise and reflect the rapid convergence of mobile and financial services. We stress however that there is an emphasis on genuine innovation in the services and technology, or business models introduced during 2012.
The shortlist will be published by the GSMA in January 2013, and one winner in each category will be announced at the Mobile World Congress www.mobileworldcongress.com in Barcelona on Tuesday 26th February 2013.
Eligibility:
Entry is open to all players in the ‘mobile money’ eco-system as below, and all participating organisations that are developing a wide range of advanced mobile commerce, payment & financial services on the mobile platform.
Entry is open to:
- Mobile Network Operators
- Banking organisations
- Credit/Debit Solutions Organisations
- Retail and other Commercial Organisations
- Transport & ticketing operators & solutions providers
- Financial Application Developers
- Mobile Device and Point of Sale/Terminal Manufacturers
- Entries that have been developed as a result of partnerships between Operators & financial institutions are welcomed as joint entries.
This category is for both commercially available products, devices, applications or services or products/apps/ services that have been launched in at least one market or are in widespread market trials before the awards entry deadline of Friday 30th November 2012.
Please provide evidence in your entry to support this such as launch or trial dates, including details of countries or regions where the product/ device/ service/ application is available or trial undertaken.
Judging criteria:
Entries for the Best Mobile Money Innovation category will be judged on the following main criteria:
- The service is new or genuinely innovative and different from other similar services deployed in the market today
- Entry provides a seamless, simple to understand and use mobile based commerce experience for users
- The product or service is reliable, consistent and provides value to the user
- The product or service entered is available in at least one mobile market today
- Judges will expect to see evidence of user take up
- Entries conform to appropriate standards and regulatory codes of practice
In assessing the entries in this category, judges will also take into account services and products that:
- Leverage relationships with operators in general as partners
- Take advantage of banking grade secure elements on the SIM
- Demonstrate advantages of interworking across operators, service providers etc.
- Exploit NFC to interact with the environment in a secure and trustworthy manner
- Respect the privacy and security of subscribers/consumers etc.
Entry forms, supporting materials & formats:
This year, the submission of video to support your entry/entries is very positively encouraged. You may provide one URL to a video link demonstrating your entry. This should be either privately or publicly posted to YouTube (if a private post, please provide a user name and password for judges to access). The video should be between 3 and 5 minutes in length, but no more.
If pointing judges to a website within your entry, please include one website URL, where specific information relating to your product or service entry can be found easily (judges will not surf websites looking for the information).
The on-line entry form includes an upload facility for you to provide multimedia. You will have the ability to upload 5 additional files to accompany your entry up to a maximum file size of 5MB each. These can be illustration pdfs for customer testimonials etc, Jpeg for photos or PowerPoint for technical diagrams or statistics, but please keep these relevant to your entry and keep the pages to a minimum of two).
Specific Entry Form Questions for this category:
On the entry form, in addition to submitting contact and company information, you will be asked to answer the following questions (maximum text/character length for your answers also shown in brackets below):
Preview of entry form questions:
- What is the brand name of your NFC/Mobile Money entry? (i.e. the entry) (500 characters = approx 85 words, including spaces) Please note the name given here will be used in all awards publicity.
- Is this a joint entry? If so who are the partnering organisations? (500 characters = approx 85 words, including spaces)
- Please describe as simply as possible, the nature of the product or solution and the user proposition i.e. how does the service work? Please describe it as accurately and succinctly as possible (500 characters = approx 85 words, including spaces)
- When was the product or solution commercially launched or trials started, and in which markets is it currently available? (500 characters = approx 85 words, including spaces)
- Please describe the specifics of why it is genuinely innovative? What is new or unique about the entry, and what are the key benefits for users as a result? (1500 characters = approx 250 words, including spaces)
- How is it seamless, simple and reliable for users? (1500 characters = approx 250 words, including spaces)
- Please describe what is unique, new or innovative about your product or solution? (1500 characters = approx 250 words, including spaces)
- Please give additional background information to support your entry. For example, why is it good value for customers and, specifically, what evidence is there that a large user following has been established? (1500 characters = approx 250 words, including spaces)
- What quality of service measurements are in place, what international standards and regulatory codes does it comply with etc? (1500 characters = approx 250 words, including spaces)
Please note: Use one URL that is specific and relevant to the category and will help judges further understand your entry, but due to the number of entries received, judges will not have time to surf company websites looking for further information on the entered product/service or initiative.
