Posts Tagged ‘mobile banking’
Posted on November 25, 2008 - by lincolnw
Realizing the Potential of Branchless Banking: Challenges Ahead
Being able to make payments conveniently and securely is an essential ingredient in modern life and commerce. It enables economic livelihoods and supports many social relationships (remittances between geographically split families and friends), communal support actions (e.g., joint buying of staples), and public welfare programs (payments to needy families). Yet most people and microenterprises in developing countries must rely on physical delivery of cash or actual goods to make payments. This imposes large costs and risks on those beyond the reach of modern payment networks.
The lucky few have more efficient means of exchange: checks, money orders, direct bank transfers, credit cards, debit cards, and so forth. All these cut down on the need to carry cash, making consumers and their money more secure. Even handling and exchanging cash is a lot easier: consumers have debit cards with which they can exchange electronic value for cash at any number of conveniently located automated teller machines (ATMs)…{click this link to read the rest of the article}
Posted on November 3, 2008 - by lincolnw
Philippines: Ayala’s create RP’s 1st mobile microfinance bank
The Ayala Group has created the country’s first mobile microfinance bank. In partnership with Ayala Corp., Bank of the Philippine Islands and Globe Telecom, the new mobile facility will be called Pilipinas Savings Bank.
Capitalized at 500M, BPI and Globe will have an equal stake of 40 percent while Ayala Corp. will own 20 percent of the bank.
Ayala Corp. general counsel Renato Marzan said the venture will extend wholesale microfinance loans to microfinance institutions and other microfinance products in the future, and will use mobile technology to deliver financial services and expand its retail client base…{click this link to read the rest of the article}
Posted on November 3, 2008 - by James
PlaNet Finance Receives Grant to Start Mobile Banking Project in Africa and Middle East
PlaNet Finance received a $1.7 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support a Mobile Banking Project. The Mobile Banking Project, which is co-developed with Orange, will help PlaNet Finance use its existing mobile phone platform and infrastructure to provide microfinance clients with enhanced access to banking services.
Today, 1 billion people have a bank account, but 3 billion have a mobile phone. Mobile banking has the potential to bring financial services to the most rural and remote populations, providing poor people with limited access to these services the opportunity to save money, pay bills and apply for microloans.
[click here to read the rest of this article...]
Posted on September 8, 2008 - by James
MicroCapital: Mobile phones- changing the world we bank in…
Washington D.C., September 4 - What do these countries have in common: Kenya, Pakistan, Mongolia, the Maldives? They share political challenges, conflict, as well as having highly dispersed populations across varied types or terrain.
They are also pioneers when it comes to mobile phone banking. Here’s why.
For financial services, there are few alternatives to cell phones. Banking infrastructure (branches, ATMs, POS at stores, internet penetration, etc.) in these markets is dismal and slow to change, but cell phone penetration is growing fast. There are four mobile operators in Mongolia, a country with the world’s lowest population density (1 person per sq km) and where 400 villages are spread across a vast geography the size of the lower 48… [click here to read the rest of this article...]
