Do Banking without a Bank!

Telecom Industry constitutes a new, emerging financial services player, particularly due to the mobile banking usage flourish, the financial decentralization (PSD2 regulation) and the deep technology expertise owned.

The traditional telco transactional network consists of the following basic entities:

  • Subscribers
  • Suppliers: Technology Equipment Providers, such as Apple, Huawei, Samsung, etc
  • Roaming Telco Providers & Interconnect Telco Partners, offering connectivity to foreign networks
  • Distributors: Telco's Branches Network & other connected merchants

Monetary transactions between a telco operator and above entities indicatively may include top up actions, bill payments, other payments (e.g. public sector, utilities, insurance), as well as bulk payments, chargebacks and payment orders.

What is this new telco scenery FinTelco™?

FinTelco™ is a Telecom Operator offering Financial Services to its network.

It enables the Telco Operator to initiate a new Line of Business, by providing payment & financial services to its clientele (either by acquiring the relevant certifications (e.g. EMI License) or by becoming part of a Payment Service Provider (PSP) network):

FinTelco diagram
  • Each player creates its own e-wallet (issued by the telco operator or PSP)
  • The Payment Services Provider takes care of all monetary transactions execution
  • All monetary transactions are instant and with minimal or zero commission fees

In the new business model (FinTelco™), a telco operator could provide the following benefits to its network:

Subscribers
  • Make any kind of payment, as long as the merchant is in Telco Operator's Network
  • Low or zero commission, Instant Payments
  • Social P2P Payments to Telco Operator Subscribers, by choosing the phone number
  • Consolidated Loyalty Schema
  • Personal Financial Management
  • Accept payments from Telco Operator Subscribers, instantly and without commission (for corporate users)
  • Business Reporting/Analytics (for corporate users)
  • For corporate clients, EMI license could be also applied for making convenient how these work, and how they should probably proceed in their new business model journey, form the pure telco operating model to the financial services model.
Suppliers
  • Low Commission, Instant Payments
  • Business Reporting/Analytics
Roaming Telco Providers
  • Low Commission, Instant Payments
  • Business Reporting/Analytics
Distributors
  • Low Commission, Instant Payments
  • Business Reporting/Analytics
  • Expanded Consolidated Loyalty Schema (to the telco’s customer base)

Summarizing the benefits for a Telco Operator:

  • A new LoB accompanied by revenue streams (commission per transaction, loyalty programs of mutual interest with merchants)
  • New entrants at its network (both retails customers and merchants)
  • Increased data usage from both existing and new users
  • Valuable data (user’s transactional profile)

And this is achieved by becoming a Financial Operator (by acquiring the relevant payment service provider (PSP) license (i.e. EMI)) or by becoming an agent of a financial operator’s network.

Along with its strategic partnership with versatile and innovative fintech companies with multiple years of experience in the Financial Services Sector, Intracom Telecom aims at becoming a vital part of the digital transformation journey of telecom institutions, through a powerful suite of Mobile Financial & Consulting Services, driven by Big Data Analytics.

Social Banking

Social Banking refers to social peer-to-peer payments, in the context of gift recommendation. More specifically, the relevant module suggests to the user what is the best present to gift to a specific friend, based on his transactional preferences:

Social Banking

This is an indicative customer journey example:

  • Customer (X) performs transactions via its e-wallet
  • The module ‘knows’ Customer’s (X) favorite merchants / products
  • The module suggests Customer (Y) to send Customer (X) a gift, as there is an upcoming friend anniversary, in three days
  • Customer (Y) chooses from the suggested merchants & defines a maximum amount that wishes to spend (or split the bill with other friends)
  • The module redirects Customer (Y) to the merchant’s website & Customer (Y) either completes the purchase (via its e-wallet) or transfers the amount to Customer's (X) e-wallet
  • Customer (X) receives a relevant notification, which either approves or rejects
Geolocation Marketing via Gamification

This application leverages real-time geolocation data and gamification techniques, in order to offer personalized recommendations/suggestions to the users in a gamified context, enabling social interaction.

Here are some use cases of Geolocation Marketing via Gamification:

Geolocation Marketing image
Lifestyle Banking

Lifestyle Banking refers to non-banking related content, communicated to the users, based on their profile, interactions and network:

lifestyle banking

The FinTelco model leverages the following data areas:

  • Mobile Apps Usage via her Telco Operator post/pre-paid package (e.g. Instagram, Facebook, CNN Greece, etc.)
  • Telco Operator TV Content
  • Network Calls & SMS
  • Monetary Transactions (payments, transfers, purchases)
  • Customer Data (family members, date of birth, working company, etc.)
  • Geolocation Data

Based on the above, the Telco operator can provide:

  • Personal or P2P Analytics(usage rates, comparison with cluster or friends zone)
  • Beyond Banking Recommendations (e.g. movies, restaurants, trips, etc.)
  • Geolocation Personalized Marketing
Cognitive PFM

AI-powered add-on Modules for any Personal Financial Management (PFM). PFM constitutes the new way of customer service, as it enables the Bank to act as a financial consultant to its clientele. PFM goes beyond "yet-another" banking mobile app, as users have the capability to perform a series of actions, such as create a saving goal or a budget plan, as well as receive meaningful information regarding their transactions, accounts and products.

For more details, please refer to Cognitiva™ – Artificial Intelligence Application Suite.