Bharti Telesoft, Riyada Consulting signs mCommerce Partnership

Bharti Telesoft, Riyada Consulting signs mCommerce
Partnership with
Arab Financial Services (AFS)
Bahrain, 24 April 2008: Bharti Telesoft – a leading provider of Value Added Services (VAS) and mCommerce
services to mobile operators worldwide – in partnership with Riyada Consulting, today announced the signing
of a strategic partnership with Arab Financial Services (AFS) for jointly marketing their offerings in the
mCommerce field. AFS is the Middle East’s leading provider of electronic payments and consumer finance
outsourcing services.
Speaking on the occasion, Shankar Sharma, CEO, AFS explains, “We are excited about this strategic
partnership under which we will be integrating the mobiquity platform with our in-house card issuing platforms
and offering mCommerce as a new value added service. Working closely with Bharti Telesoft and
complemented by Riyada Consulting knowledge and expertise in the domains of telecom and finance, we
believe that many of our existing customers will take up the service. In addition, we will be jointly offering
mobiquity as a hosted stand alone service to institutions across the region.”
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Riyada Consulting, President, Shaikha Dheya Al Khalifa, said “ We believe that with AFS’s leading position as
a provider of electronic payments and consumer lending outsourcing services, and Bharti Telesoft’s, strong
capabilities in the filed of mobile commerce and value added services, this partnership would present the
region’s financial and non-financial institutions with a reliable, pioneering technology, which offers a
competitive advantage by helping the institutions growing their business in a cost efficient manner.”
According to Manoranjan Mohapatra, CEO, Bharti Telesoft, “As a product mobiquity has tasted success with
operators and banks in India, Bangladesh, Nepal and many countries of Africa. The product also won us the
Golden Peacock Award for innovation in December last year. As per the partnership with AFS, Bharti Telesoft
along with Riyada Consulting who is our partner in the MENA region will jointly market the offerings to the
existing and/new banks.”
“The solution is to help its customers to use their mobile phones as means of payments and inquiry for the
payment cards serviced by AFS platform. Using a mobile phone number, which has been pre-registered with
the bank, a customer can pay out credit card bills from their bank accounts, submit requests and make
inquiries. The user uses the SMS facility provided by the mobile operator to send a predefined SMS or specific
data to the mobiquity platform for making any of these transactions,” elaborates Manoranjan.
About Arab Financial Services (AFS):
AFS is the leading Arab company for electronic banking, personal payment instruments and related services.
Established in 1984, AFS is in a strong financial position with backing from leading international financial
institutions in the Arab World. The company pioneered the concept of outsourcing card processing in the region
and was the first company to set-up an end-to-end state-of-the-art card-outsourcing environment in Bahrain.
AFS is the largest payment card processor in the Middle East and North African regions. AFS is Principal
Member of Visa and MasterCard Payment Associations and an authorized third party processor centre. Over 60
Banks in the region are connected to AFS's online card management integrated solutions. AFS offers diverse
services ranging from 'get-started' to fully-fledged on-going card processing & related services, assisting banks
to issue Visa and MasterCard to their customers through sponsorship card programs. AFS offers flexible and
customized solutions to suit the specific requirements of financial institutions in the region, including full Arabic
language functionality. For further information, please visit www.afs.com.bh
About Riyada Consulting:
Riyada Consulting, is one of the leading management consultancy & advisory company in the MENA region,
with a strong management team of professionals drawn from broad range of industries and backgrounds.
Riyada Consulting and its consortium of strategic partners provide a wide range of performance enhancing
services to private and public organization operating in different industries. With their world-class product
portfolio and global capabilities, Riyada offers an unmatched breadth of knowledge and expertise in the
Telecommunications industry, Oil & Gas industry, Project Development, Marketing Consulting, Human
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Resource Consulting, and the whole spectrum of Corporate Finance services. For more information, please
visit www.riyadaconsulting.com
About Bharti Telesoft:
Bharti Telesoft is a major provider of software products and solutions to mobile operators worldwide. Its
portfolio of scalable and flexible applications enables carriers to unlock the revenue potential of their networks
and covers key service and operational areas for operators today: Value Added Services and mEntertainment,
mCommerce, and Business Support Systems. Bharti Telesoft has deployed over 400 product-based solutions
for over 85 service providers in more than 45 countries worldwide, helping power services to over 350 million
subscribers around the globe. Bharti Telesoft is owned by Bharti Enterprises, one of India’s leading business
groups with a market capitalization of US$45bn, Sequoia Capital, a leading Venture Capital business whose
interests make up 10% of the NASDAQ’s value and whose investments have included Apple, Oracle, Google,
Yahoo and YouTube, and Cisco, the world’s leading provider of network equipment and management for the
Internet. For more information, please visit www.bhartitelesoft.com
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