LUUP, the leading mobile payment service provider in Europe and the Middle East today unveiled the LUUP Mobile Wallet, an application designed to provide its banking and finance customers in the Middle East with quick and convenient mobile payments directly from their bank accounts. The Mobile Wallet will also enable LUUP’s partners to target new customers and create new revenue streams by offering payments through a customized mobile application.

“The mobile phone is the world’s most universal communications device, so it is the ideal platform for creating a global payment network. The Middle East region is witnessing one of the highest rates in mobile phone usage worldwide,” said Thomas Bostrom Jorgensen, LUUP CEO. “By partnering with LUUP, financial institutions can open up new revenue streams, appealing to both their existing customers and also to new customers seeking extra services and greater convenience from their banking provider.”

According to recent studies, in the Middle East region, the UAE mobile penetration rates exceeded 120 percent in 2007 followed by Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar. This high penetration of mobile phones highlights a potentially large market for mobile payments across the Middle East, which will generate transactions worth approximately AED 81 billion (US$22 billion) in 2008, according to Juniper Research.

LUUP integrates directly with core banking systems, allowing customers to access money from their bank accounts or from a LUUP stored value \‘cash\’ account. Using SMS, and now the LUUP Mobile Wallet, LUUP users can send money to friends domestically or internationally, shop, pay bills, or top up their calling credit, all through a simple interface. The LUUP Mobile Wallet is based on secure Java technology, and can be offered by financial institutions for over-the-air download for a wide range of phones

The LUUP Mobile Wallet can be used on the majority of Nokia and Sony Ericsson mobile phones supporting the J2ME MIDP 2.0 profile and WMAPI. It will soon be upgraded to include the other major vendors such as Motorola, Samsung and LG. It can be easily customized by financial institutions looking to add value to their customer proposition.