Nokia looks to withdraw from mobile money services

Nokia is exploring options to discontinue its mobile money services in India. The Finnish handset maker also confirmed that it does not consider mobile money services to be core to its overall strategy in the future.

Nokia has been running three mobile money services in India, including mobile banking services with Yes Bank and the Union Bank of India, and its own service, Nokia Money, which aimed to facilitate online payments rather than mobile banking. A spokesperson confirmed that Nokia has customers for each of those services in India, and is currently exploring exit strategies with its partners.

“Things have changed for us, we’ve renewed our corporate strategy over the last 12 months or so, and that combined with the business environment we find ourselves in have meant that the mobile money services would not be core to differentiating our products in the future,” said Mark Durrant, director of communications at Nokia.

“We certainly see the value of being able to facilitate mobile payments, but the need for us as Nokia to be driving a service really wasn’t core for us for the future.”

He added that Nokia has long been a pioneer in NFC and that the firm already has a number of NFC-capable devices on the market, but stressed that this is one small element of mobile services. He explained that the company’s priorities have changed from when it started focusing on mobile services in 2009.

“The company’s vision was a very different one; one of being a service provider across multiple device platforms and all handsets. Now our vision is primarily around building great products under the Nokia name and using services to differentiate them,” said Durrant.

“Obviously a service like the money services need to operate on multiple platforms, so that just wasn’t going to be core for us going forwards.”

He concluded that, until exit strategies have been finalised, services are being offered as usual, and stressed  money that subscribers have tied up in any of its services remain secure.