Difference between mpass/Germany and CepBank/Turkey
Two German mobile operators, Vodafone and O2 launched a mobile payment service called mpass on October 17th in Germany. The system is quite well-known as you enter your mobile number and mpass pin, confirm the SMS you receive and order your product as the amount is debited from your bank account. You can read shortly about the process here. Or you can check the website here that I couldn’t find any English version of the site.
In Turkey, at the end of 2007, Garanti Bank has already launched the new payment system, CepBank Shopping with the leaders of Turkish e-commerce industry.
There s a small difference that consumers can use their mobile passwords as a pin (except prepaid users), but CepBank consumers must register for using the system which is not a big deal. I think the big difference is the providers of the system. In Germany, the system is provided by mobile operators and in Turkey by the bank. So here comes the penetration difference. Vodafone and O2 introduced the product with a target of 70 million bank&mobile phone customers in the future. On the other side, in Turkey, maximum 6,5 million customers will be able to use the CepBank Shopping product, that’s all!
Personally, I believe that if we want to expand the usage of mobile payment systems, we have to support the cooperation including all the banks and mobile operators. Especially, in these innovative products which the society is almost foreign to, companies must move together. Because that can help the consumers to familiarize with the new products. And because, mobile payments is a change of consuming behaviour, itself. Think of a mobile payment system in which the consumers have chance to choose their mobile operator and their bank inside the e-commerce website. They can change the operator and the bank according to discounts, promotions, campaigns, etc. For me, this is the real marketing strategy war, the real capital market. Shortly I support the mobile operators as a provider rather than a bank, and free format payment choices rather than both 
