Sci-fi seer William Gibson said “The future is already here: it’s just unevenly distributed.” If that’s true, then the future of mobile is already happening in places like Kenya, the Philippines and South Africa. And two numbers released this month by Wireless Intelligence tell us why mobile payments and banking is much more likely to happen in poor countries than rich ones.

August saw the world’s three billionth mobile phone connection made. The first billion mobile connections took a dozen years, and the second just two and a half years, with 82 percent of new subscribers coming from developing countries. The third billion: just under two years. The growth of mobile is centered squarely in places like Mumbai, not Munich, Lagos, not London.

Meanwhile, ARPU, or average revenue per user, continues its downward trend, sliding another 12 percent globally. This means mobile operators are earning less per customer. The trend is most pronounced in poorer countries. In Africa, blended ARPU has declined by a quarter from 2005, down to 13.9 Euros, compared to the world average of 22.6. ARPUs look even less enticing if you also factor in churn (percentage of customers lost), which increases customer acquisition costs.

Why does this matter? Mobile payments and banking make the most sense for operators in Africa, where revenues are sliding fastest and hardest. The decline isn’t terribly surprising: mobile operators are adding mostly low-income, mass-market customers in these countries. But to boost revenues, operators need to sell more than voice, and it needs to be a service poor people will open their wallets for. Games, ringtones and online gambling won’t do it.

Enter mobile payments and banking.

Reams of research show poor people are willing to pay for access to affordable, convenient and trusted ways to pay bills, make purchases, send money home to family in the village or abroad, and save in a safe place. They need to manage their finances, like consumers in developed economies – it’s a common need across borders.

The question is, will mobile operators divert enough of their attention to experiment in providing such services over mobile? In the short run it looks like there are still plenty of new customers to be won just on voice. But if ARPUs continue to slide, where will mobile operators in developing countries find themselves in 5 years, when margins grow slim, markets are more saturated and competition stiffer?

Mobile payments and banking can help bolster ARPUs by offering a service mass-market clients in low-income countries have been shown to be willing to pay for. But mobile operators need to start experimenting now in order to have well-honed m-payments and m-banking services in a few years, fitted to the demand profile of the unbanked.

CGAP’s Technology Program works on helping providers better understand the opportunity. CGAP is advising and co-financing 20-30 pioneers, in order to better understand the drivers and tensions in business models using mobile and other technologies to bank the poor. We’re also working on how to steepen customer adoption rates, and advising regulators on how to build appropriate enabling environments, with adequate protections for consumers and the financial system, but openness for innovation.

Learn more here –> Branchless Banking for Inclusive Finance - CGAP Technology Program (pdf)