The FINANCIAL — MobiPay, which already serves 54 countries with mobile financial services, has chosen Georgia as regional base due to the fact that it is geographically central to international markets. In the future, MobiPay will also expand to other countries in Eastern Europe and the Eurasian region – according to Richard Sharp, Managing director of V-Ten capital partners, lead investor in MobiPay.
MobiPay through Geocell, TeliaSonera Group with 2 million subscribers serves people with its mobile payment services to Georgians since July 2010.
Richard L. Sharp (Class II), age 63, has served as the Chairman of our Board of Directors since April 2005. From 1982 to 2002, Mr. Sharp served in various positions with Circuit City Stores, Inc., a retailer of consumer electronics, most recently as President from 1984 to 1997, Chief Executive Officer from 1986 to 2000 and Chairman of the Board from 1994 to 2002. Mr. Sharp served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of CarMax, Inc., the nation's largest specialty retailer of used cars and light trucks, from 1994 to 2000 and Chairman from October 2002 to June 2007. In 1992, he was a founding investor of Flextronics International (Flextronics), a NASDAQ-listed (Nasdaq: FLEX) leading Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) provider. He served as a director of Flextronics from 1993 to October 2008 and as Chairman of the Board from January 2003 to January 2006.
“V-Ten made the investment decision based on the strength of the MobiPay Executive Management Team and their business plan. Prior to V-Ten investment in MobiPay, the MobiPay Executive Management had conducted an extensive feasibility study on the possibility for mobile financial services in 54 countries around the world, including Georgia”, Mr. Sharp said.
Q. Why have you chosen Georgia as a base country? Due to location or some other reason?
RS: We were impressed by the availability of well-educated and talented Georgians available for employment as well as the pro-business environment. In addition, Georgia is geographically central to international markets that we have targeted to serve with MobiPay.
Every new venture works through inevitable expansion challenges but we are very pleased with our progress in Georgia. We appreciate the Georgian Government’s commitment to maintaining a good environment for private enterprise and investment.
Georgia is the first country to have MobiPay and it will be a regional base. In the future, MobiPay will expand to other countries in Eastern Europe and the Eurasian region.
Our investment focus in Georgia is on MobiPay. Many different Georgian businesses will benefit from the new mobile payment services offer through MobiPay, including leading retailers, suppliers, employers, banks and our mobile operator partner, Geocell.
Allen Gilstrap, MobiPay CEO, Georgia
Q: You are representing service/business that is not traditional in Georgia. How difficult was explaining people about the benefits MobiPay gives to them? And did they easily accept you service?
AG: While MobiPay is a very innovative new service in Georgia, Georgian consumers have quickly understood the benefits. MobiPay lets you pay bills, send money to a friend (mobile to mobile), top-up Geocell airtime and make purchases at hundreds of merchant locations.
The convenience of paying bills instantly on your mobile phone when you want rather than having to go somewhere and stand in line to make bill payments is something all Georgian consumers can appreciate. Similarly, topping up your Geocell airtime account instantly and being able to send money to a friend mobile to mobile is very compelling.
Q: What is the philosophy of your business? How it works?
AG: MobiPay’s business philosophy is driven by providing greater value to its customers which include merchants, billers and consumers. Value comes from increase convenience and from getting more. For example, when you use MobiPay instead of cash for a merchant purchase you will often receive a special bonus, discount or merchant offer.
Q: Your mobile communications partner is Geocell, well why haven’t you cooperated with other operators? Or they’ve denied your offers?
AG: We purposely selected Geocell as our exclusive mobile network operator partner because of their extensive coverage, great service and their commitment to bringing new, innovative services to consumers in Georgia. Another consideration in our decision making was that Geocell is part of the TeliaSonera Group which also operates in several other countries in Eurasia and Eastern Europe that MobiPay has targeted.
Q: How many customers do you have so far and where can MobiPay be used? (in how many sales points?)
AG: Every day, Georgian customers are now paying bills, topping up their Geocell airtime, transferring money to friends and making purchases at merchants. There are over 1,700 committed MobiPay merchant locations in the greater Tbilisi area today who are either already accepting payment or preparing to accept payment. Last week, for instance, three new major merchant commenced payment acceptance: Goodwill, GPC and PSP. Our website (www.mobipay.ge) shows all the merchant locations.
Q: Have you hired employees overseas in order to do the job (MobiPay)? Or only local staffs are in charge of doing things?
AG: The vast majority of the 100 plus people working for MobiPay are Georgians. We do have a few international staff deployed in Georgia and a support team back in the United States. I am one of those international staff who now considers Tbilisi as my new home!
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