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Ducont helps you set up your WAP portal

Dubai, 1 July, 2001:
Ivan Fernandes has always enjoyed the challenge of making new things work. Back in the 1980's, he used fledgling satellite technologies to give remote villages in India their first taste of TV. In 1993, he started working seriously with Microsoft's Windows NT computer operating system when everyone else regarded it with derision. Now, he's getting into WAP and the wireless Internet in a big way.

Fernandes is the Managing Director of Ducont, a UAE startup that will focus initially on one primary niche: Helping regional banks offer mobile banking services. Ducont will offer to set up and maintain these services, taking all hosting and management issues off the hands of banks in return for retainer fees that it says will be highly competitive.

Fernandes' interest in WAP began when he was Chief Technology Officer for Financial Software at Logica, a position he assumed when Logica acquired Quaestor, a package that Fernandes conceived and helped to develop. "I put it to Logica last year that mobile would be a dominant thing in the future and we should invest in it," he says. "As soon as WAP was available, we did a prototype and launched WAP banking in January."

By February of this year, Fernandes had decided that he wanted to be an entrepreneur again. He had after all done it successfully with Synectics, the company he had set up to develop Quaestor. So he combined $2 million of his own and partner Ahmed Al Rafi's money, with his knowledge of the banking industry and the wireless Internet, to launch Ducont.

The Ducont proposition is pretty straightforward. The UAE has lots and lots of banks, many of which fit in the small to medium sized category. Those banks want to reach their customers in as many ways as possible, such as through the mobile phone, but the complexity and cost of new technologies deters them from developing new services.

"These banks cannot afford to invest half a million dollars in their own hardware and having a team to manage and maintain it," says Fernandes. "They would rather have someone else do it for them." This is where Ducont comes in. In exchange for a signing up fee and the monthly retainer, Ducont will set up a mobile banking portal according to the bank's instructions, host it on a computer and maintain it. The company aims to offer an almost identical set of services to what is typically available on a standard Web site. That means balance enquiries, funds transfers, acceptance of third party orders, utility payments and ordering a cheque book. If an individual bank wants it, it can even offer mobile phone users the ability to set up a standing order. Ducont can also set up WAP portals with Arabic support. "The only thing that cannot be provided is a full bank statement, but I can show the last five transactions," says Fernandes.

Ducont's relation with Service Providers and Telcos is intended to be a complementary one. Whilst they develop infrastructure, Ducont is here to help provide services and content that encourage subscribers to make more use of these infrastructures. "Whatever we do, we add value to the service providers' infrastructures, helping to increase their revenues," says Fernandes.

Ducont will focus initially on the banking market but its expertise could be of lots of benefit to other industries. "People want to know how we can extend their existing Web sites with WAP," says Fernandes.

Fernandes has already spoken to cinema houses about setting up mobile booking services for them. Newspapers have also been asking him about making their content available to mobile users in WAP format. Just as it will with banks, Ducont could again play the role of an outsourcing partner that will set up and maintain the WAP portals for customers.

One idea that is definitely on the cards is mobile office services. Think of being able to dial up an application similar to Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes whilst you're out on the road. With just a few taps on your phone, you can find out where your next appointment is or find a number that you mislaid. You could also tell your Service Provider to send you a message to remind you of a certain meeting.

For Ducont, it's still early days, but this company has big plans. Potential partners are already being spoken to outside the UAE, in countries as far away as Canada. As the company grows and moves toward International expansion, an IPO is likely to be part of the plan. Visit: www.ducont.ae