Hi Rob. I am enjoying your blog, and thought you might appreciate this story out of South Africa about banking over mobile phones. I am convinced it is the future of banking, rich and poor, but it will initially be driven by poor leapfrogging communities. Anyways, enjoy: http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0826/p07s01-woaf.html http://www.standardbank.co.za/SBIC/Frontdoor_02_01/0,2454,10293765_15147290_0,00.html

Hi Rob, also referring to the comment by Mike - I also very strongly believe that the mobile/cellphone-based banking and communication services can make a great contribution to socio-economic capacity building. We are involved in various countries and projects, as a provider of these services to merchants, banks, telcos and card operators. However, I see a clear trend developing - that of the Merchants that we supply the systems to, having a huge impact on the population and their client base (Mostly SMME's) alike and I think there is where the real benefits will come from, also because we can eliminate lot of costs etc. if we do it as consumer credit for say building material or FMCG and thus without a bank being involved. There is limited information available on www.mopay.co.za and if readers want more they can contact me on cobus@mopay.co.za for more detail as to the aspects raised above. I also have lots of research material available, only a pleasure. Regards, Cobus (MoPay founder)