Described in an earlier post yet another way to overcome connectivity short-comings in rural communities. Can’t have mobile banking (what’s that?) without the “pipes” to carry the data.

Mobile banking can be another service down-the-road for the DakNet guys, using even just plain vanilla SMS, one of many “bearer” technologies that providers need to consider. These technologies can’t be ignored when you have shared phones, as in the case of DakNet, and don’t want sensitive banking info. left on the phone or stolen via an unsecured wifi network.

You can imagine how villagers could communicate with a bank using cell phone. That makes it easy to understand informational banking — checking balances, alerts, etc. But how do you get cash to the bank when it has no branch near you, which is often the case in rural communities.

ATM is one option. WIZZIT, a “virtual” mobile bank in South Africa, issued MasterCard’s Maestro branded debit cards to its customers, who are often poor.

And when there are no ATMs, as in rural India. What about the internet kiosk itself. The kiosk operator could handle cash on behalf of the bank if the regulators permitted it. Not often the case as regulators are not sure how to address this, and the business case is unclear to banks, but there are a number of successes in Latin America, and models can be profitable for all, making it possible to bring Britney and banking to the villager in India.