Boom: It's Mobile

November 15, 2011

A California firm is rolling out cash replacement product that makes it easier and safer for migrant works to send money back to family and friends in their homelands.

Known as Boom, the new service aims to make these P2P payments as easy and cheap as sending text messages. "With Boom, consumers finally have access to the kind of banking and money transfer service they have desired for years," the company said in an announcement today.

Migrant workers in the U.S. remit billions of dollars every year to family and friends around the globe, paying as much as $20 cash per transaction. Meanwhile, recipients have to travel often long distances to money transfer offices, and risk being held up for their cash.

m-Via, the Palo Alto, CA  firm that created Boom, has pulled together a network that includes hundreds of thousands of merchants and ATMs that covers the U.S. and much of Mexico as well as access top over 15,000 cash load locations in the U.S. Boom supports mobile money transfers of any size from $5 to $1,000.

"The beauty of m-Via's solution is that while it is complex behind the curtain, it's incredibly simple for consumers use," said Jesus Delgado-Jenkins, a senior vice president at 7-Eleven, a Boom merchant.

"Traditional money transfer services are unsafe, expensive and inconvenient for recipients who have to travel to pick up money," said Bill Barhydt, m-Via's CEO.

"With massive consumer migration happening on a global scale and with billions of dollars flowing across borders every year, this is a multi-billion dollar market opportunity," said Jim Robinson of RRE Ventures, a venture capital firm with an eye for mobile and financial investments.

There are 78 ATMs for every 100,000 adults in the developed world; in developing countries just 23 ATMs are deployed per 100,000 adults 

_{-Financial Access database}