Money transfer for the unbanked
People without bank accounts often own mobile phones. Network operators have created solutions for person to person transfers between phones. These are popular in the developing world. Few facts:
- GSMA and McKinsey & Company: estimated that 45 million unbanked people were using mobile money in 2009, expected to reach 360 million by 2012
- According to Juniper, there were around 100 million active users of mobile money services worldwide in February 2011, a figure they projected to rise to more than 200 million in 2013
- Berg Insight reckoned that there were 133 million mobile money users in emerging markets in 2010 and forecast that that number would increase to 709 million by 2015
- Most succesfull service is mPesa in Kenya
- Each operator has also its own payment system based on the same model (SMS/USSD)