Oversight, Strategy and Mobile Financial Services Thought Leader!
Gavin Krugel is known to be one of the forefathers of Mobile Banking and the World’s leading expert in the Mobile Financial Services space.
Gavin has 12 years of extensive experience in the payment solutions and banking products field. He has helped develop, implement and manage several successful payment products globally. Including being the key IP and driver behing the GSM Industries Mobile Money Transfer Initiative. www.gsmworld.com/mmt
Gavin started his career at Standard Bank South Africa in 1995, where he learnt the payment card business. He left the group as part of an outsourcing deal to work for EDS, a multinational solutions company, as a business analyst. In 1997 he undertook a project at Investec Private Bank to develop and implement their card division and first card product, the Investec Private Bank Gold Card. Thereafter he joined Absa Bank Limited, South Africa’s largest financial institution, and a Barclays subsidiary, as Group Business Manager Debit Cards. In this position he was accountable for the running of Absa’s Debit card business and ensuring growth in product and revenue and successfully taking the product to some 6 Million consumers.
Gavin joined MasterCard Worldwide in 2000 with a view to broaden his international experience. He was responsible for developing new and innovative payment solutions for the group. Mobile-Commerce was one of these initiatives. Gavin led the financial institutions and Cellular Network Operators to agree on a standard for Mobile Commerce through the SAWPG (South African Wireless Payments Group) and the GMCIG (Global Mobile Commerce Interoperability Group).
Once standardised, Gavin developed a strategy with MasterCard’s Global Mobile Commerce Group on extending the payments franchise to the mobile phone. This strategy led to him finding the appropriate vendor (Cointel-Simplus) to roll out and manage the strategy for MasterCard.
Gavin Joined Cointel-Simplus as a General Manager in October 2002 with a view to manage the South African Mobile Commerce Strategy as well as to expand the Simplus Mobile Commerce Platform into other regions in the world. Gavin was appointed Chief e-Business Officer of Cointel in June 2003.
Cointel and the Simplus brand are jointly the largest m-commerce business in South Africa with a processed value exceeding US$350Million per annum with exponential growth forecasted for subsequent years.
Gavin changed what was a recharge platform into full Mobile Banking and Commerce platform. Live products included:
· Full mobile retail banking in Namibia; South Africa; Kenya
· Mobile Acquiring (accepting payments on mobile phones instead of point of sale devices) in South Africa; Kenya; Namibia
· Mobile Bill Payments in South Africa, Kenya, Namibia
· Mobile Recharge Solutions in South Africa, Kenya, Namibia
Gavin has also advised on banking and payment strategies, systems, Mobile Banking software implementations, external dependencies and partner aggregation in the following markets:
India (Telco’s; Banks; Processors); UAE (Telco’s; Banks; Processors); Saudi Arabia (Telco’s);Egypt (Africap); Kenya (Telco’s; Banks; Processors; Billers; Government) ; Tanzania (Processors); Uganda (USAID/Genesis Analytics) ; Botswana (Telco’s; Banks; Billers); Namibia (Telco’s; Banks; Billers); United Kingdom (MasterCard; Visa; GSMA); United States of America (MasterCard); South Africa (Telco’s; Banks; Associations; Processors; Corporates).
Gavin has since founded TroyTyla (Pty) Ltd, a technology distribution and consulting services house. Gavin’s focus is on advising associations, financial institutions, governments, donor/funding organisations, and telco’s, on extending the payments franchise to new product, channel, customer and to the unbanked.
Gavin Krugel advises organisations, such as MasterCard Worldwide, MNO’s, several donor organisations and several banks, on payments strategies, systems and products. He is seen as one of the worlds leadings expert in extending the payments and banking franchise to Mobile and has specialised in the field for the last 6 years.
He has a global network of contacts and associates that span vendor, associations, financial institutions and industry experts. This network supports him in establishing standards, benchmarks, new product innovation, strategy, and providing accurate statistical data.
Gavin has been part of the worlds most successful mobile financial service implementations, including Wizzit, MTNBanking, mTranZact, Simplus, and the GSMA's Mobile Money Transfer Initiative.
Gavin was educated in Microfinance at the Accion/Harvard Business School Strategic Leadership in Microfinance Program. He is also currently completing his Masters Degree.
