Everybody needs some money sometimes. That is precisely why money-transfer giant Western Union Co. has launched its Digital Vendor Program.

The program is intended to extend the reach and accessibility of the company's services to mobile finance initiatives in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Fundamo, mChek, Sybase 365 and Utiba Pte are certified to offer Western Union's money transfer service capability as a component in their software and services offerings.

"This is a strategic partnership for Sybase 365, since it allows us to be the solutions integrator for mobile money transfers globally," said Eckhard Ortwein, area vice president of EMEA for Sybase 365, Dublin, CA. "As part of this announcement, Sybase 365 will provide the technology backbone to integrate operators and banks into the Western Union network.

"The partnership with Sybase 365 allows Western Union to extend their reach globally through digital channels," he said. "The challenging part for digital solutions is integration, since it requires the participation of banks, operators and money transfer organizations.

"With our partnership, Western Union can now extend its reach globally, beyond physical agents."

The Western Union Co., together with its Vigo and Orlandi Valuta-branded money transfer services, provides consumers with ways to send and receive money worldwide, as well as send payments and buy money orders.

Western Union entered the mobile finance space in the second quarter of 2008, with an endorsement for a global pilot program by the GSM Association, a global trade association representing more than 750 mobile carriers worldwide.

The Western Union Digital Vendor Program is open to mobile finance platform vendors who have successfully deployed a mobile money offering.

Certified vendors agree to maintain current version control against the Western Union money transfer service interface.

A direct contractual relationship with Western Union is required to activate its money transfer services.

The first providers to join Western Union's certification program are four mobile finance platform providers with both active and planned service implementations: South Africa-based Fundamo, India-based mChek, U.S.-based Sybase 365 and Singapore-based Utiba Pte.

Successful mobile money service offerings are typically deployed on a single-country basis and include three service providers working together in a single mobile finance ecosystem, according to Western Union.

Participants in this ecosystem include carriers, financial institutions and mobile platform providers.

Western Union connects into this ecosystem by providing money-transfer capabilities.

The company is certifying mobile platform vendors to reduce integration costs and accelerate go-to-market activities for banks and carriers by creating standard technical deployments.

Once a bank or carrier contracts with Western Union to activate its mobile money transfer service, its consumers will be able to send and/or receive money through Western Union's global money transfer system, connected to more than 334,000 agent locations in 200 countries and territories.

The number of mobile phone subscribers is approaching 4 billion, which more than doubles the number of Internet users.

With the world's top markets such as China and India having less than 40 percent mobile phone penetration, it is easy to see that the future growth will be in emerging markets, rising to 5 billion mobile phones by 2012, according to Sybase.

In absolute terms, this is the potential size for mobile commerce and mobile money opportunities, as all mobile phones are capable of sending and receiving data in the form of text messages.

"Market uptake is driven largely by two areas of mobile payments: remote payments to initiate transactions in any ?e' or mCommerce scenario and proximity payments to initiate face-to-face transactions in real-world scenarios," Mr. Ortwein said.

"The uptake in emerging markets will be driven by remote payments, in particular SMS-based services such as domestic or cross-border person-to-person fund transfers," he said.

"The uptake in developed markets will be driven by the commercialization of proximity payments using Near Field Communications -- NFC -- and mainstream payment applications creating a healthy alternative to cash, credit or debit cards."

The demand for mobile commerce and mobile money related processing services, systems, software and associated support and consultancy is estimated to rise to more than $10 billion in 2013, according to Sybase.

"Mobile payments have particularly taken off in Asia and Europe," Mr. Ortwein said.