Mobile solutions provider MobiQuest (www.mobiquest.net) has announced a mobile bill presentment and payment solution that will enable businesses to send billing information directly to a customer's mobile phone through SMS.

The solution, mBill, is targeted at billing companies such as credit card issuing banks, service providers and other utility companies.

Electronic statements provide flexibility, immediacy and convenience for customers, said Mr Ashok Agrawal, Managing Director of MobiQuest. But as the competition increases, companies face new challenges such as rising customer expectations, more stringent security requirements and the high cost of offering personalised services. The mBill solution was developed to meet these demands, he said.

With the MobiQuest solution, the mBill client on the customer's mobile device will receive the billing SMS and encode the information into a barcode or mBill. The customer can then bring the mBill to any payment platform and have it scanned and validated before making payment.

Mr Agrawal (left) and a colleague demonstrate the mBill solution to the Minister of Communications and the Arts Dr Lee Boon Yang at imbX 2008.

Apart from the latest billing information, the mBill client will alert the customer regarding payment deadlines and also retain the last five payment records for the customer's reference.

According to MobiQuest, the service will enable businesses to strengthen their customer relationships by providing customers with timely information. Companies will also be able to lower the cost of sending billing reminders and provide ready reference to pending payments, thus receiving payment faster, said Mr Agrawal. It is also an environment-friendly solution as it helps to reduce paper usage.

In addition, businesses will also be able to leverage the capabilities of the system to provide promotional information to customers, said Mr Agrawal. Examples include the issuing of mVouchers for restaurants and fashion outlets and mTickets for events.

Besides the mobile bill presentment and payment solution, MobiQuest also offers a mobile unified instant messaging solution that unifies popular instant messaging networks such as MSN, Yahoo and Gmail Chat on the mobile phone. The MobiQuest Instant Messaging (MQIM) solution is available for the simplest mobile devices in today's market, as well as the more traditional high-end phones, said Mr Agrawal. "MQIM will create an experience on the mobile device that is similar to the best possible desktop experience, whereby all of the major lM networks such as AOL, Google, Jabber, ICQ, Microsoft and Yahoo! can be easily accessed by the mobile user."

MobiQuest also provides mobile application development services. The company's On Device Portal framework enables media companies and service providers to rapidly deploy and manage rich media mobile applications.

The framework combines mobile advertising with wide handset support and management capabilities. Generic applications include ODP Rich Media and ODP Information, which enable users to quickly access and preview content such as ringtones, games, and videos as well as information offline before making a purchase; and ODP Storefront which enables the service provider to customise and dynamically update their content offerings. Other services provided by MobiQuest include mobile application porting and localisation, and mobile application testing.