India’s Aircel, ICICI Bank among first to make use of payment provider’s hosted service.

Visa on Wednesday launched a managed mobile money offering designed to make it simple for banks and operators to link financial services to mobile phone numbers.

Hosted in Visa’s data centres, the new service is based on the mobile money platform developed by Fundamo, the mobile financial services specialist that Visa acquired in 2011 for $110 million. It can manage all aspects of a budding mobile money service, from the usual transaction processing, authorisation, clearing and settlement processes, right up to user interface design and customer enrolment.

“Visa’s new mobile money platform is designed to allow mobile operators and financial institutions to focus on their core business, while leaving the management of their mobile money service to Visa,” said Bill Gajda, head of global mobile products at Visa, in a statement.

One of the first customers of Visa’s new hosted service is Indian operator Aircel, which has partnered with one of the country’s biggest banks, ICICI, to enable its customers to send money, top up their prepay accounts, and pay their bills via their handset.

“Through the Visa hosted and managed service, Aircel is now able to partner with local banks to offer our mobile subscribers access to money services that will simplify their financial lives,” said Geoff King, head of mobile banking at Aircel.

Two Rwandan banks, Bank of Kigali and Urwego Opportunity Bank of Rwanda have also signed up to the service.

Visa’s platform supports multiple mobile channels, such as USSD, IVR and xHTML, enabling operators to roll out services that will work on not just smartphones but low-cost feature phones as well.

In addition, it can be tailored to comply with different regulatory requirements in different countries, allowing operator customers and financial institutions to deploy globally interoperable mobile money services.

Nokia Siemens Networks will provide its GSM-Railway* (GSM-R) infrastructure for a major rail line in Poland. The nation’s rail network management, PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe, is modernizing this highly complex 35-station line linking Poland’s capital, Warsaw, with the northern Baltic port of Gdynia.

The deployment of the GSM-R network along the 350-kilometer section of Poland’s E65 line will provide a communications backbone for the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) solution. The project will be carried out by a consortium of Nokia Siemens Networks, Thales Polska Sp. z o.o. and Bombardier Transportation, introducing ERTMS standards to this busy passenger and freight route.

While Thales Polska and Bombardier Transportation are in charge of designing, developing and implementing the Level 2 European Train Control System** (ETCS) signaling part, Nokia Siemens Networks is responsible for the entire GSM-R project including network expansion and rollout.

“Nokia Siemens Networks’ GSM-R communications will help PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe ensure greater safety for passengers travelling on the Warsaw-Gdynia high-speed route,” said Andrzej Wolski, project director at PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe. “The modernization will also allow us to shorten travel time by increasing the speed of our modern trains, which will be able to run at up to 200 km/h in selected sections.”

Nokia Siemens Networks will provide its market-leading GSM-R radio network equipment, including base stations, base station controller, the transmission backbone, as well as the dispatchers and handheld terminals. In addition, the company will deploy its maintenance system for Railways (NetAct) and integrate ETCS Level 2 signaling for the GSM-R turn-key project.

The solution will be put into commercial operation in the second quarter of 2015. “This project underlines our global leadership in the GSM-R market where we have more than a 50% share in the deployed GSM-R tracks. It further strengthens our position in Poland as a leading mobile infrastructure provider, also outside traditional telecommunication sector,” said Piotr Kaczmarek, Poland country director at Nokia Siemens Networks.

Nokia Siemens Networks’ GSM-R system meets the enhanced safety, interoperability and quality expectations of railway operators while reducing operational costs and providing additional differentiation potential in the transportation market.