 | Bringing Banking to the Masses - One Phone at a Time |
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The World Bank predicts mobile money could affect the lives of more than 2 billion people in developing countries by 2020, paving the way for a new era of financial services in which banking will no longer be the domain of a small upper class. This article finds that mobile telephone technology can provide banking services to those with no previous banking relationship or augment services offered to existing customers. More than half of the world’s adult population lacks access to formal financial services. The proportion is greater in developing countries, where 64 percent on average do not have bank accounts, compared with 17 percent in developed nations. Mobile communications technology is fast becoming a conduit of change. Cell phone subscriptions have mushroomed to cover 75 percent of the global population, enabling mobile banking networks to sprout and reach the unbanked, disproportionately in developing nations. http://www.dallasfed.org/research/eclett/2012/el1211.cfm SOURCE: US Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas |
