Interview with CGAP's Mark Pickens: Branchless Banking Sector "Exploding"

Manuel Bueno — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 10:07:16 -0500

Mark Pickens is a Microfinance Analyst with the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), a global resource center for microfinance housed at the World Bank. We have quoted CGAP on NextBillion in several posts (see them here, here and here). They are arguably the most authoritative source of information about branchless banking services and are currently in the forefront of research efforts to understand and develop this market.

Mark has co-authored a global review of regulation for mobile and other forms of branchless banking, forming an evidence base from more than 500 interviews with central bankers and executives in the mobile, banking and technology industries. His work has been quoted in The Economist, The Banker and CNN.com. Prior to joining CGAP, Mark consulted with the United Nations, US government, commercial banks and specialized microfinance lenders.

Last Friday, I had the pleasure of interviewing Mark about branchless banking’s recent developments and the most important issues as this market evolves in complexity and size. Mark explains why mobile phone banking is currently one of the hottest sub-topics in the financial services in emerging economies sector.

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Interview with CGAP's Mark Pickens: Branchless Banking Sector "Exploding"