O2 boosts financial services division

Having launched its first financial products last year, O2 UK has now decided to appoint a managing director to lead the overall strategy and operation of the firm's financial services business.

The new executive, James Le Brocq, has been tasked with boosting the O2 Money division to become a more meaningful element of the company's push into becoming a wider service provider. O2 UK launched its Cash Manager and Load & Go services last year and claimed to have received over 100,000 applications in the first seven days of launch. Little has been seen or heard of these services since.

However, Le Brocq stated that he saw the new role as being "a very exciting opportunity to take the enormous initial success of O2 Money and build O2's financial services arm into a solid, innovative business that delivers value to O2 and to its customers."

When O2 Money was launched last July, O2 CEO Ronan Dunne, remarked that this was the first step in implementing NFC technology in mobile phones in the UK.

"We believe that we are at the start of a journey towards the coming together of phone and wallet and we intend, through O2 Money, to be at the forefront of this trend," stated Dunne.

While O2 Money was launched in partnership with the banking group NatWest, O2 UK had previously been working with Barclays to trial NFC.

For more on this story:
- read Mobile News

Related stories:
O2 partners with bank to launch mobile money service
Transactions of mobile money rise in Europe, says new report
Banks offering mobile financial services see significant customer base growth
Nokia goes for gold with mobile payments investment