The seller did not have to wait for days for the cheque to clear, having been paid instantly, which did wonders to its Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) metric – although by the same token, the buyer saw his Days Payables Outstanding (DPO) shortened as well, which is a negative metric.

M-commerce and mobile phone banking do have potential implications on cash management, agrees Lam. “Certainly one of the attractions to the merchants [in Hong Kong] that we are selling the prepaid top-ups to is that the money will be settled in their bank accounts twice a day,” she says. “I don’t know how CFOs will deal with payables, though.”

“I firmly believe in the potential of mobile, especially when you come to emerging markets like Asia,” adds Patil. “In the West, [cash management] has evolved over a period of time, starting with paper and then to electronic and on to mobile. In Asia, we now have an opportunity to go from paper to mobile directly. That will mean a lot of benefits and a lot of competitive advantage to companies in Asia.”

When consumers are convinced top-ups are safe, “we will move on and push more services,” says Lam. People will be able to pay monthly bills, for example, or transfer small amounts to others in Hong Kong via their mobile phone. From there, Monitise hopes to expand the envelope further to remittances in another country, and on to m-commerce and business-to-business banking and payments.