HOW POWERFUL IS MOBILE MONEY?

'Mobile phones

have transformed lives in the poor world.

Mobile money

could have just as big an impact', said The Economist

'ONCE the toys of rich yuppies, mobile phones have evolved in a few short years to become tools of economic empowerment for the world’s poorest people...More than 4 billion handsets are now in use worldwide, three-quarters of them in the developing world. Even in Africa, four in ten people now have a mobile phone.'

'Across the developing world, corner shops are where people buy vouchers to top up their calling credit. Mobile-money services allow these small retailers to act rather like bank branches. They can take your cash, and (by sending a special kind of text message) credit it to your mobile-money account. You can then transfer money (again, via text message) to other registered users, who can withdraw it by visiting their own local corner shops. You can even send money to people who are not registered users; they receive a text message with a code that can be redeemed for cash.'

'By far the most successful example of mobile money is M-PESA, launched in 2007 by Safaricom of Kenya. It now has nearly 7m users—not bad for a country of 38m people, 18.3m of whom have mobile phones.'

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