{"id":659599,"date":"2013-05-22T12:20:23","date_gmt":"2013-05-22T16:20:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/?p=648230"},"modified":"2013-05-22T12:20:23","modified_gmt":"2013-05-22T16:20:23","slug":"boosts-new-mobile-wallet-is-coming-to-virgin-and-maybe-even-sprint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/659599","title":{"rendered":"Boost\u2019s new Mobile Wallet is coming to Virgin and maybe even Sprint"},"content":{"rendered":"

At CTIA Wireless, I had a chance to sit down with Sprint vice president of product platforms and services Kevin McGinnis and talk about\u00a0Boost Mobile\u2019s new digital wallet<\/a>. It quickly became apparent from our convesation that Sprint has some big ambitions for the new financial services app.<\/p>\n

McGinnis said that it will soon offer a similar wallet to customers of its other prepaid brand — Virgin Mobile — and it is considering bringing it to the main Sprint brand as well. Sprint also plans to build on Wallet\u2019s initial batch of services, to create what McGinnis calls \u201ca virtual bank\u201d for its customers.<\/p>\n

\"mobile-wallet-shutterstock-mmaxer\"<\/a>Today, Boost\u2019s Mobile Wallet can transfer funds between accounts, pay e-bills, wire money to physical locations and, with the help of prepaid Visa card, you can make purchases and withdraw money from ATMs anywhere Visa is accepted. Soon Boost\u2019s wallet will let you scan physical checks, depositing funds directly into your wallet account.<\/p>\n

But McGinnis said there are other services in the works. He didn\u2019t provide specific deals, but it\u2019s not hard to imagine features like virtual checking accounts or peer-to-peer payments such as those offered by PayPal, Venmo and now Google and Square<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sprint doesn\u2019t want to become bank itself — that would put it under the regulatory scrutiny of the U.S. Department of Treasury, which Sprint wants to avoid, McGinnis said. Instead, Sprint is working with Wipit, a mobile payments provider focusing on people without bank accounts and credit cards, to provide the financial services infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the customer\u2019s point of view, it\u2019s kind of a bank in the sky that is Boost backed,\u201d McGinnis said.<\/p>\n

Sprint\u2019s wallet is unique because it focuses on what the financial industry calls the unbanked \u2013 households that deal almost entirely in cash. Most other wallet and financial services apps are linked to bank accounts, credit and debit cards. This approach to financial services has had a huge impact in other parts of the world and has made Kenyan mobile operator Safaricom the biggest bank in East Africa<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The U.S. isn\u2019t Kenya, of course, but according to a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation study<\/a> (pdf), 8.2 percent of U.S. households have no bank account whatsoever, while an additional 20.1 percent of U.S. households have a bank account but also make use of alternative financial services such as check cashing and payday loan companies.<\/p>\n

\"Boost<\/a>Of the major providers, Sprint is in an ideal position to serve those customers. People who rely primarily on cash naturally gravitate towards prepaid mobile phones, and Sprint is one of the most aggressive carriers when it comes to prepaid. It runs three prepaid brands (Boost, Virgin and Assurance Wireless) and offers pay-as-you-go options on its primary Sprint brand as well. At the end of the first quarter<\/a> it had 16 million customers on prepaid plans.<\/p>\n

While Mobile Wallet\u2019s initial focus will be on those unbanked customers, McGinnis said there is a lot of potential for the app for customers who have traditional bank accounts, especially as Sprint and Wipit add new features to the app. That\u2019s one of the reasons McGinnis thinks Mobile Wallet will be a good fit for Sprint\u2019s contract customers.<\/p>\n

Sprint already is working with Google on mobile payments<\/a>, but McGinnis pointed out that Google Wallet is really a point-of-sale transaction technology linking to credit cards or bank accounts. Meanwhile, Sprint\u2019s Wallet is intended to be a replacement for or a supplement to those accounts and payments cards — just without the actual bank.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing broken with plastic in retail today,\u201d McGinnis said. Sprint, he added, just wants to make that plastic available to more people.<\/p>\n

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