Etisalat repeated last year’s success at the most important annual gathering of the telecommunications industry by winning a major award for innovation.
The Middle East’s leading telecommunications operator won in the “Best Near Field Communication/Mobile Money Product” category at the GSMA’s Global Mobile Awards 2013 during the just concluded Mobile World Congress held in Barcelona, Spain, adding to three awards from the industry’s most prestigious competition last year.
“We are delighted that our focus on achieving customer satisfaction through creation of innovative products and services has once again been recognised at the most important event in the global telecoms calendar” said Steven Evans, chief executive officer at Etisalat Nigeria.
One of our core missions is to be known as a major enabler and innovator in the Nigerian Ecosystem and working with all key stakeholders to create a value proposition to meet the needs of our customers.
The winning product, Etisalat Commerce Programme – known in Nigeria as Easywallet is the first fully secure Mobile Money SIM Application offered to customers with the easywallet application installed on their SIM cards. This unique application recently awarded the Best Mobile Money SIM Application at the Kalahari Awards in Lagos and also nominated for a prize in the “Most Innovative Mobile Application” category, supports multiple languages – English, Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba and works across all makes and models of phones, smartphones and even tablet devices.
Abdulkarim Julfar, CEO at Etisalat Group added: “This award will motivate us to keep innovating and introducing products that give entrepreneurs the tools they need to achieve their goals anywhere in the world.” Easywallet brings together a wealth of services– for consumers and enterprises who are looking for the right mix of mobility, security, convince and technology to manage their financial transactions. The mix of services available includes utility, merchant and salary payments, money transfers, online payments, bank transactions.
The Etisalat Commerce Programme has been commercially available across a number of Etisalat operations including Nigeria where it was launched last year as Easywallet. Easywallet was developed in partnership with First Bank, GTBank, Stanbic IBTC and Zenith Bank. Meanwhile, the telecoms company and FC Barcelona has announced the renewal of a four-year partnership agreement. The deal means the UAE-based company is FC Barcelona official partner in the UAE, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, the Ivory Coast, Benin, Togo, Niger, Gabon and Central Africa Republic.
The contract was signed during Mobile World Congress 2013 – a major event for the telecommunications industry taking place in Barcelona – at FC Barcelona’s stadium, Camp Nou, by Julfar, and Sandro Rosell, the president of FC Barcelona. They were accompanied by Steven Evans, Etisalat’s CEO for Nigeria, Khalid Al Kaf, CEO for Mobily (which operates in Saudi Arabia), Nagi Abboud, CEO for Atlantique Telecom, its Chief Regional Officer for Africa, Essa Al Haddad and Rainer Rathgeber, Etisalat Group’s Chief Commercial Officer.
Speaking about the partnership, Julfar, said: “As a global telecommunications operator, it makes sense for us to partner with a world-class football club interested in expanding its international fan base. This partnership presents a unique opportunity for us to demonstrate Etisalat Group’s capabilities as a telecommunications operator, while allowing FC Barcelona to engage new fans in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. We very much look forward to sharing the talent of FC Barcelona with our customers.”
Speaking in the same vein, Evans said,” Football is a major past-time in Nigeria and across Africa.
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