Obopay CEO Carol Realini told the blog that high growth in mobile payments was still possible, especially in developing countries such as India, where Obopay operates aside from its home country the US. She cited a Gartner report predicting mobile payments growing from 6 million users in 2009 to 100m by 2011. Kenyan carrier Safaricom’s mobile payments service M-Pesa has been especially successful. It started out as a domestic service to allow Kenyans to send money to one another through their phones. Now, Safaricom owner is testing mobile transfers between the UK and Kenya through the M-Pesa service.

Obopay lets consumers and businesses buy, pay, or transfer money through any mobile phone using Obopay’s mobile application, text message, the mobile web, or Obopay.com. The mobile payments provider charges the sender $0.25 to send up to $1000. Receivers do not pay anything. No word on whether Obopay might eventually be one of the payment options on Nokia’s upcoming Ovi Store. If it were integrated, it would give Nokia another payment option aside from credit cards and billing through a user’s mobile carrier. The last point is especially important, as developers will get less of the promised 70/30 revenue split after the operator’s take their cut for handling the payment.

Nokia VP and head of corporate business development Teppo Paavola joins its board of directors.