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mFoundry Launches Spotlight Mobile Financial Platform
[April 17, 2007]

mFoundry Launches Spotlight Mobile Financial Platform


SAN FRANCISCO --(Business Wire)-- mFoundry, an award-winning mobile application platform provider, today announced the formal release of the Spotlight Mobile Financial Platform. Spotlight delivers a "single click" financial services solution that serves the needs of financial institutions, wireless operators and their customers. Financial institutions using the Spotlight Platform can create well-branded, unique mobile applications that run seamlessly and independently inside of an operator's Spotlight application. Mobile subscribers accessing the operator's Spotlight application receive a simple way to view the details of their various financial relationships.



Spotlight will be supported by some of the largest players in financial services. Announcements covering Spotlight adoption by banks, payment processors, credit card providers and wireless operators will follow in the next few weeks.

"Spotlight is absolutely unique in the market. This isn't about aggregating banks into a pre-existing user experience," said Drew Sievers, Co-Founder and CEO of mFoundry. "No other company can offer financial institutions the device coverage, distribution options, usability and customization features they need to service their customers and increase brand engagement. At the same time, Spotlight gives mobile operators the most flexible way to offer their subscribers a powerful, secure and convenient approach to interacting with their finances."


According to Sievers, mFoundry's goal with Spotlight was to provide a solution that focused on the end user while still properly addressing all of the needs of the mobile financial services ecosystem. Providing a single launching point for a user to access their financial information makes sense for the user and the operator, provided that financial institutions are not forced into a homogenous solution. Bob Egan, Chief Analyst for TowerGroup, the leading analyst firm for the Financial Industry, points out that "Financial institutions need the ability to customize and control their user experience and brand representation. Banks, for example, spend hundreds of millions of dollars trying to differentiate themselves from one another. Putting them into a solution that prohibits them from creating unique brand experiences is simply a non-starter."

Spotlight also lets wireless operators customize the look, feel and features of their Spotlight Application, helping them to distinguish their offering from other mobile operators. "It's not enough to only give financial institutions the ability to customize their solution. Wireless operators also spend hundreds of millions of dollars building a brand, so launching an identical solution to one of their competitors isn't the best way to drive shareholder value," says mFoundry's Sievers.

Spotlight incorporates mFoundry's existing mBanking product into the solution, and offers a wide variety of features and benefits:

Wireless Operators

-- Device Coverage - Spotlight is the only solution that currently supports hundreds of handsets across all major U.S. wireless operators.

-- Focus - Spotlight allows operators to provide a single starting point for all current and future Spotlight generated applications.

-- Flexibility - Spotlight's architecture allows operators to seamlessly add financial institutions, and new features and functionality to their Spotlight application without requiring a user to install or delete their existing application and preferences.

-- Development - Spotlight comes with a simple SDK that operators can make available to financial institutions and other interested parties, creating an open environment for innovation. Updates and enhancements to any aspect of Spotlight are handled seamlessly over-the-air.

-- Marketing - Spotlight can be integrated into an operator's existing mobile advertising solution in order to deliver targeted marketing messages to mobile subscribers.

Financial Institutions

-- Easy - mFoundry's mBanking product has been integrated into Spotlight, providing a turn-key mobile banking solution for all financial institutions.

-- Flexibility - Spotlight gives financial institutions the option of customizing mBanking to provide features, functionality and brand experience specifically designed for their customers.

-- Security - Spotlight is compliant with FFIEC guidelines for multi-factor authentication, while also offering integrated customer care allowing financial institutions to remotely disable their application.

-- Self-Support - A Spotlight application can be easily developed and maintained by the financial institution or its consulting partner using existing web development skills.

-- Broad Support - Spotlight was developed to run on nearly every secure mobile device in the market, offering financial institutions the broadest customer coverage possible.

Mobile Subscribers

-- Personalized - Spotlight lets users add, delete and save their favorite financial relationship and features.

-- Flexibility - A user's Spotlight preferences will stay with them as they replace their existing handset with newly supported devices offered by their wireless operator.

-- Convenience - Spotlight lets users access all of their financial relationships within a single, well-branded user experience, providing them with a simple, quick and secure solution.

A key relationship for mFoundry is Citibank North America, which unveiled Citi Mobile using mFoundry's mobile banking technology in April 2007. For more information, please contact [email protected].

About mFoundry

mFoundry is an award-winning mobile application platform provider. mFoundry's mWorks(R) platform offers a complete solution for developing and distributing applications for enterprises and developers. Using mWorks, mFoundry has created a leading product for mobile banking that has been adopted by some of the largest banks and carriers in the US. For more information, please visit www.mfoundry.com.

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