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Macalla signs deal with Postbank 
Thursday, June 14 2001
by Rory Kelleher


Irish software company, Macalla has signed an EUR2 million contract with Postbank
Nederland.



Postbank Nederland is using Macalla's Mobility platform to deliver its mobile
banking service in conjunction with mobile operator Telfort.

Macalla, which currently employs 70, is planning to hire an additional 50 people
by the end of the year.

Telfort will provide Postbank's customers with free pre-configured pre-paid
Siemens M35i Internet-enabled phones.

Postbank is planning to launch the service with 500,000 customers initially in
June of this year.

"Retail banking institutions and mobile operators are very much our target
market. The initial EUR2 million contract is for licensing of our Mobility
Platform software and maintenance," said Sarah O'Flynn, marketing director of
Macalla.

Postbank, with more than seven million customers, is one of the Netherlands
largest retail banks.

The service combines both SMS messaging and WAP. WAP will be used to deliver
services including bill payment, transferring funds, checking account balances
and share information.

Telfort will provide a SMS service, which will notify customers when their call
credit is running out, and enable them to top it up via their mobile phone.

O'Flynn said she was not worried about the low take up of WAP among mobile phone
users. "Part of the problem up to now was that WAP services have been poorly
designed. We are conscious of this with usability being central to the way we
develop our software."

She said Macalla made sure that the services available to Postbank users would be
very simple to use.

Because the mobile phones, which will be provided free, to Postbank customers
will be pre-configured they will not have to dial up or use series of codes and
PIN numbers.

O'Flynn said the company was concentrating on developing transactional-based
services which allow the user to avail of them from whatever device they want be
it PC, mobile phone or PDA.