I think however that the analysis needs to include further items such as:

Brand trust as a key element that will restrict cross-agent usage, until regulations and commercial benefits combine to make this a reality. Competing brands will be happy to service a competing MM subscriber if it is commercially viable, customers are not confused and if they have the opportunity to cross sell. Many MNOs would love to get their competitors customers coming into their stores and asking for service. The focus from MM providers will be to increase quality to win servicing customers.

Domestic interoperability has already been mandated in some regulatory frameworks from the start, and can be argued to have depressed investment due to the (regulator desired) pressure to increase competition to the benefit of the subscriber. Its unrealistic to think that regulatory and industry pressure will not have an eventual effect in more mature domestic MM markets and planning needs to start on what this means.

When considering interoperability, international remittance must be taken into account – especially in areas such as the West African CFA, and arguably the East African Community. Whilst country borders exist, language and trade can benefit from international remittance, whilst respecting local MM brands. There is an opportunity here to set (and benefit from) the agenda, as opposed to allow the status quo to remain. MNOs should investigate the size of this market by analysing call and SMS patterns to and from neighboring markets.

Interoperability, both domestic and international can only benefit the customer if presented in a clear way, and with strong brand management, the domestic mobile money providers. This will lead to higher quality in order to win the customers attention. MM providers need to include contingency planning to cover enforced domestic interoperability, and should look at those plans as a future business case backed up by insights from existing internationally aware customers.