Mobile phone banking is already fully commercial in the Philippines, South Africa, and Kenya. It's about to happen in perhaps a dozen additional countries. With more than 1.5 billion mobile phones deployed in the developing world, the potential market is large and growing. The need is equally apparent-most of the BOP have no access to modern financial services, despite the success of microfinance.

So what is keeping this from becoming a revolution in financial services for the poor? In a word, regulatory hesitation. Central banks-and behind them, the U.S. Treasury-want to be sure that the democratization of financial services does not also lead to widespread money laundering and consumer fraud. And a key part of current security systems-the SIM card that gives each phone a unique ID-is device-based and potentially hackable.

Today we report new research that assesses the potential of biometric security systems-user-based, not device-based-for mobile phones. It turns out there is an obvious candidate, and that phones with this technology are already in commercial production.

I won't give away the story-read the report, Biometric Security for Mobile Banking-but the cost of including this technology in low-cost GSM or CDMA phones appears to be low, well within the buying power of most of the BOP. The report also places this new capability in the context of broader technology trends that could extend the reach of mobile phones-and mobile banking-into rural areas.

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What does a next-generation BoP strategy look like?  How do large companies work effectively (and profitably) with the BoP?  What have we learned in the years since Stuart Hart and C.K. Prahalad published their s+b article, Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid?

If you're looking for answers to these questions, then you may be in luck; they - and many more - are addressed in the newly-released Base of the Pyramid Protocol: Second Edition.  The Protocol, first developed in 2003 and 2004, has been revised extensively under the leadership of Hart and co-author Erik Simanis.  The new edition's subtitle?  "Toward Next Generation BoP Strategy."  That alone should tell you enough about its value to those of us in the BoP space.

Some may ask, what is the BoP Protocol, anyway, and was there a first edition?  Good questions.  The Protocol is a new business innovation process, developed specifically for the BoP by a group of academics and practitioners over the past 5-plus years.  The first BoP Protocol workshop was held in 2004, and the first edition document was released in 2005 - download it at the BoP Protocol web site.

Over the next 3 years, the Protocol was field tested with SC Johnson (in Kenya) and DuPont/Solae in India.  The Second Edition is, in part, a reflection of what the authors learned through these field tests and in their own development of a sustainable innovation process for the BoP.

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We are all looking for opportunities to develop our ability to address poverty and underserved markets with business solutions. One forum that brings together students and young professionals to connect around these ideas is StartingBloc.

I was encouraged to apply to StartingBloc through WRI staff who have attended in the past and who recommended the program. I was then fortunate enough to be admitted as a New York City 2008 StartingBloc fellow, and I would like to share some of my experiences thus far.

The first of three weekend gatherings was held at NYU-Wagner in mid-February. 115 students and young professionals from 21 countries convened to kick off the program. During the course of the day, we talked about Scojo, Grameen, Acumen Fund, D-Lab, Kiva and numerous other BoP initiative poster children.

The agenda was packed with speakers and sessions on these well-established organizations. Those stories, as exciting as they were, have been told before. I felt that the more unique aspect of the day was meeting the other fellows, who ranged from the ages of 20-35 and carried a sense of unbridled idealism and curiosity.

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