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Dublin - Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/pgb9cb/australia_digita) has announced the addition of the "Australia - Digital Economy - M-Commerce Developments and Projects" report to their offering.

M-commerce includes segments such as m-banking, m-payment and transaction services, mobile content applications and mobile advertising.

The market began to develop in the late 1990s, but the mobile operators' rather cumbersome business models resulted in a low uptake of m-commerce. Mobile banking has been the exception and, since the mid-2000s in particular, this market has seen enormous growth. Up to 75% of consumer banking transactions are now done electronically (e- and m-banking). A similar development took place in the travel market, particularly for airline bookings.

The arrival of the iPhone proved that the mobile operators' restrictive portal market could be bypassed and this produced an explosion in new mobile applications, to such an extent that the value of this market overtook the mobile portal market within two years and this platform is now the dominant m-commerce platform. Possibly within another year or two the open Android platform together with an open API type access will support more m-commerce and drive development further and the takeup of mobile money transfers.

M-payments, however, could still be a lucrative market for the telcos, since they have the opportunity to bill customers via their mobile billing system and have the large customer databases. Overseas telcos have combined to create international money transfer hubs that are being increasingly by mobile phone operators.

Companies mentioned in this report include - mHITs, National Australia Bank, Visa, MasterCard, Commonwealth Bank, ANZ Bank, Westpac, CabCharge and Taxis, BICS, Belgacom, Swisscom, MTN.

Technologies mentioned in this report include - Near Field Communications (NFC), person-to-person (P2P) payments Retail POS, hubs, contactless payments, interactive voice recognition (IVR).

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1. Synopsis

Originally posted here:
Research and Markets: Australia - Digital Economy - M-Commerce Developments and Projects - 2012

10 May 2012 Last updated at 06:15 ET By Tim Masters Entertainment and arts correspondent, BBC News

With ebook sales on the rise, how is the publishing industry embracing the world of digital?

Next week some of the biggest names in publishing will gather at the Hilton in London's Park Lane for The Bookseller Industry Awards.

This year sees the introduction of a new category - the Digital Strategy Award - which recognises how the introduction of new technology is opening up the market.

It comes at a time when UK sales of consumer ebooks leapt by 366% in 2011 helping to offset a decline in the demand for printed books.

Last week it was revealed that the Pottermore ebook store sold 3m-worth of Harry Potter ebooks in its first month, with more than 1m of sales taking place in the first three days.

Sam Missingham, of The Bookseller's digital publishing blog FutureBook, says 2012 is the year that digital has become embedded into publishers' thinking and is no longer "just an interesting experimental playground for the cool kids".

"Ebooks are the bread and butter stuff," she says.

"Publishers are seeing huge growth in this bit of their business. One of the big leaps in digital is that publishers are able to communicate with their customers directly."

That is true of one of this year's award nominees, Harlequin, which has seen its Mills and Boon brand flourish in the digital era.

More:
Is digital opening up a new chapter for publishing?

NEW YORK (MainStreet) -- The digital barbarians are rattling the gate. With Goldman Sachs GC , JPMorgan Chase JPM and Morgan Stanley MS charging probably $150 million in fees to lower the IPO drawbridge for a young, cash-starved CEO named Mark Zuckerberg, it almost feels like the invulnerable Wall Street fortress of yesteryear, doesn't it? But be honest, it's just all like the guards at Buckingham Palace -- a nice little show for the tourists. The fact is, the digital age has little room for Wall Street. BlackRock BLK , probably the world's largest money manager, summarily dumped the supposed invulnerable trading czar, Goldman Sachs, to begin dealing on its own. And never mind New York Stock Exchange digital alternatives such as The BATS Exchange or Direct Edge. So-called dark pools -- which are nothing more than a geek who matches buyers and sellers with a PC under his desk -- are where the real growth in finance is. Volume for these trading riffs on Napster hit an all-time high this year, according to Rosenblatt Securities, which tracks the dark trend of dark pools. Facebook's Pop and How To Play It >> We all know what's happening. The same commoditizing forces of information overload that pulverized the publishing, product retail and porn industries are bringing the same razor-thin margins and indefensible markets to financial services. Even as Wall Street marches its last line dance of greed over Facebook, the hungry hordes taking financial service apart will not be denied. Here are my picks of three digital barbarians with the sharpest teeth: BankersLab turns anybody into Ben Bernanke.

Listen up, all you chartered financial analysts and Harvard Business School grads. Wilmington, Del.-based BankersLab is building a heck of a business out of the truth with managing money. Simply memorizing a bunch of stuff from a book doesn't help you with real-world financial problems. Practice does. And BankersLab is cribbing the same kind of approach used in video games to bring real-world trial and error to fiscal managers. Read it and weep, CFAs and MBAs: BankersLab offers simulation training for pricing a risk, managing exposure or even valuing a deal that any bright person can master. "We've seen advances in the analytics and technology available to retail bankers," says BankersLab CEO Michelle Katics on the company site. "However, ability to strategically act with some anticipation of the future can be improved." Which means, my fellow Ivy league Grads and CFA trainees, we probably did just spend years of our lives learning something we never needed to bother with. Doesn't that suck? BancBox turns the tiniest business into a bank.

Once upon a time, say you wanted to move money or manage accounts or handle client finances -- you called up a bank. No more. San Mateo, Calif.-based BancBox brought the bank to every business. It has taken all the software that banks use to manage money and created an online list of application programming interfaces for most of those functions. These little APIs let me, you or anybody connect directly to the banks' fiscal software. "We've integrated with banks so companies don't have to," CEO Sanj Goyle writes on the company website. BancBox technology merely extends a bank's reach, Goyle says. That's certainly true -- to a point. But once a user gets hold of the programming tools that connect directly to one bank's software, its easy to connect to any bank's software. And playing one against the other becomes child's play. Personal Capital grinds investment management fees into a fine white powder.

Investment advisers make a nice living telling us all what do with our money. But not for much longer. Redwood City, Calif.-based Personal Capital is bringing the same race-to-the-bottom economics of Amazon AMZN to investment management. Personal Capital offers most of its customized investment advice for free, and charges -- get ready for this -- less than 1% in management fees to cover costs. 10 Stocks to 'Like' When Facebook Goes Public >> There is real money and brains behind Personal Capital, including $25 million from Institutional Venture Partners. And Bill Harris, the ex-CEO of Intuit INTU . And If you don't think a low-cost financial services firm can't blow up by-hand financial planning, just take a look at its machine-controlled trading, risk analysis and language tools. Picking a personalized diversified portfolio really is something a computer can do. The bottom line of the digital age is this: Financial information is just that, information. Information that becomes more common -- and more worthless -- every day.

Read more:
The Digital Skeptic's Guide to 3 Wall Street Slayers

Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda, who has that rare ability to capture the essence of childhood with effervescent sensitivity, has done it again with "I Wish," the story of a family separated by divorce and the two brothers who scheme to bring everyone back together.

Tapping into that universal hope of so many kids of broken homes, Kore-eda has conjured up a Tom Sawyer-esque adventure for 12-year-old Koichi, who lives with his mother and grandparents in Kagoshima, in the southern Kyushu region, and his younger brother Ryunosuke, Ryu for short, who chose to stay with his father in Hakata, in the north. The boys, wonderfully played by real brothers Koki and Ohshiro Maeda, stay in touch by cellphone, but Koichi in particular longs for an intact family, and that longing shapes the rest of the film.

The great elegance in Kore-eda's work is that the writer-director allows the story to emerge from everyday moments, one event triggering the next such as Koichi's school assignment to write about his father's profession, which leaves the youngster feeling his dad's (Joe Odagiri) absence sharply and triggering his push to reunite the family.

When Koichi overhears one of his classmates say that the new bullet train which will connect the brothers' cities has some wish-granting powers, a plan in born. Each boy enlists his friends to raise enough money to buy tickets to the town that is exactly halfway between them, since in theory if you make a wish just as the northbound train passes the southbound for the very first time, it will come true.

With seven kids, two cities and tight train schedules involved, the stage is set for a lot of things to go right and wrong.

In the brothers, Kore-eda is essentially examining two sides of the same coin. Koichi, the serious one, is careful with his studies, caring with his friends and family, always contemplating the reasons why especially why anyone would choose to live in the shadow of an active volcano, which he now does. It makes for a nice metaphor that his life is literally covered in the ash that drifts down every day.

Ryu is the jokester, a roll-with-the-punches kind of kid who is weathering the separation much more easily than his older brother. He's got a group of fast friends and a quick giggle that Ohshiro makes scene stealing every time. But in the way of latchkey kids who take on grown-up tasks, Ryu also looks out for his struggling rocker of a dad, their house more a crash pad for the band than a home.

The power released by the passing trains is a whimsical myth, one the filmmaker uses to keep the tone much lighter than his acclaimed 2004 film, "Nobody Knows," with its moving story of four siblings abandoned by their single mom. In "I Wish" there is much more mischief afoot. As the kids scramble to set up plans to skip school and fool their parents, hopes and dreams are explored, and not just of the brothers.

The grown-ups have wishes of their own. Koichi's grandfather (Isao Hashizume) and his cronies concoct a secret plan to sell traditional treats to the tourists the bullet train promises to bring, one that is almost as elaborate as the kids' scheme. Koichi's mom (Nene Ohtsuka) wants to find love again, which only adds to Koichi's anxiety, while his dad is counting on new music and new bandmates to finally make it.

There is a lot of hope in the air in "I Wish," but the film never feels sappy. The very appealing score by the Japanese indie-rock group Quruli brings a kind of upbeat energy that matches the clean, open style of director of photography Yutaka Yamazaki, a frequent Kore-eda collaborator.

Excerpt from:
Review: Hope springs eternal in 'I Wish'

Rare coin seller Regency Coins has been wound up following a High Court judgment.

The demise of the Essex-based coin company, which sold rare coins to investors, followed an investigation by The Insolvency Service.

Regency began selling coins as an investment from January 2008. Many of the victims were elderly and lost their savings. It ceased trading in 2010 after police searched its premises and seized the coins.

The Insolvency Service found that the company sold low-quality coins at inflated prices so that the investor was unlikely to make any profit. Regency also sold the same coin to more than one person as well as selling coins that it didnt own.

Regency is insolvent, and without any assets to compensate victims.

David Hill, case supervisor for The Insolvency Service, comments: Regency portrayed itself as a safe investment choice for people who had saved a bit of money and wanted to invest some of it for theirs, and their familys future.

He adds: These scams are particularly shocking because they target the most vulnerable members of society. The worst thing is, after the money has been taken, most elderly investors will never be able to make good their loss again.

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Rare coin seller wound up