Utiba, a global provider of mobile financial transaction software, announced that its affiliate for the Americas, Utiba Americas, won the RFP process for the mobile wallet project of the Central Bank of Ecuador.

The mobile money project initiated by the central bank will integrate with the new national ID system to enable the new contactless and intelligent national ID card as a method of payment from the mobile wallet.

As part of the contract, Utiba Americas will offer the Utiba Mobility mobile financial services platform on a hosted basis. The platform will assist the Central Bank to focus on the design, deployment, and testing of services, as well as the commercial coordination for the launch of each of them.

“The mobile money project is a key initiative for the Government of Ecuador to accelerate financial inclusion and we are pleased to have Utiba Americas as our technology partner to enable this project,” said Santiago Vasquez, Mobile Financial Services program director at Central Bank of Ecuador, in a statement.

Ecuador, like many Latin American countries, has 103 percent mobile phone penetration in 2011. However, majority of the population does not have access to a bank account. The Ecuadorian mobile financial services project will offer a mobile wallet for storing, sending and receiving money.

“Once we understood the full vision of the Central Bank of Ecuador and their plan to use mobile money as a catalyst for financial inclusion of all segments of Ecuadorian society, we were eager to take part and to lend our global deployment experience and the unique capabilities of the Utiba Mobility platform,” said Jesus Luzardo, vice president of Sales, Utiba Americas.

The Utiba Mobility platform manages over 12 billion mobile financial transactions per year, in deployments that span over 30 countries.

Recently, Utiba Americas announced that it is planning to target sales in the promising Brazilian market and will be meeting with prospective clients.