Comviva, the global leader in providing mobile solutions beyond VAS, on Thursday signed a agreement with MasterCard to launch a first-of-its-kind open loop Mobile Money Partnership Program.

As per agreement, Comviva and MasterCard will help the more than 2.5 billion financially underserved consumers globally to gain access to mainstream financial services – via their mobile phone.

“With our established leadership in empowering mobile money technology across geographies, we are thrilled to support MasterCard’s first-of-its-kind open loop Mobile Money Partnership Program. Our dominance in emerging markets makes us as an unequivocal partner of choice for MasterCard to cater to underbanked segments with intuitive financial services. With mobile financial services turning into a key business strategy for banks and telecom vendors, this program will also give the right impetus to financial and social inclusion”, said , Manoranjan Mohapatra, CEO, Comviva.

“With about five billion mobile phone users worldwide, this partnership program provides powerful, smart and convenient new payment options to people through a device that’s already in the palm of their hands today. To ensure success of this program, MasterCard has partnered with the leading players in the mobile money ecosystem. Comviva was a key partner of choice to empower billions of underserved segments in the developing market,” said Mung Ki Woo, Group Executive, Mobile, MasterCard Worldwide.

The Mobile Money Partnership Program will address the need of consumers in developing markets through a readily accessible device, the mobile phone. Comviva will work with MasterCard to enable global consumers to purchase goods and services via their mobile phone at millions of physical and online merchants, as well as transfer funds and pay bills. According to Juniper Research, the combined market for all types of mobile payments is expected to reach more than $600B globally by 2013, double the current figure.

Stored value accounts, primarily managed by mobile network operators and supported by banks, offer basic services such as mobile top-up, bill payments and P2P payments within the network. Through this partnership, Comviva and MasterCard aim to help mobile network operators and financial institutions to accelerate the development of their financial services offerings to their customers.