Rabo Mobiel

Rabo Mobiel

Type	Mobile virtual network operator
Founded	2006
Founder(s)	Eric Huijgen
Headquarters	Utrecht, the Netherlands
Area served	the Netherlands
Products	postpaid and prepaid mobile telecommunication mobile banking services
Parent	Rabobank
Website	[www.rabomobiel.nl www.rabomobiel.nl]

Rabo Mobiel is a Dutch Mobile virtual network operator. It was launched on the 15th of November 2006 into a market where 50 virtual network operators were active at the time. Rabo Mobiel runs in cooperation with mother company Rabobank Nederland, offering on the one hand postpaid and prepaid mobile telecommunications services, and on the other hand mobile banking and payment services.

Originally launched to target the ca. 3 million Rabobank internet banking customers, Rabo Mobiel has grown to use web and retail channels, and target different segments, including youth, students and small businesses. At the end of 2007, Rabo Mobiel claimed to have 125.000 customers.

Innovations

In addition to core telecommunications and mobile internet services, Rabo Mobiel focuses on mobile banking and payments functionalities and applications. This includes products such as SMS alerts, mobile banking via secure WAP and SMS, mobile phone parking services, etc. Since 2006, they have also been working on NFC technologies, including trials at C1000 supermarkets (together with KPN, Logica and NXP Semiconductors, as well as Stichting RFID Nederland and Banksys), Coca Cola, FEBO, Diergaarde Blijdorp and the American School of The Hague.

In July 2008, Rabo Mobiel launched Rabo SMS Betalen, a product for person-to-person and person-to-merchant payments using SMS. The product is operator- and bank-independent, and therefore available to all customers, not only customers of Rabo Mobiel or the Rabobank.