It seems like every week there’s a new market study that comes out about mobile banking – but few of those (if any) focus exclusively on the opportunity to be found in serving poor, unbanked people in developing countries.

So, with our friends at the GSMA, we thought we’d share a preview of the upcoming results of the CGAP-GSMA Mobile Money Market Sizing Study, which includes:

• a projection of the unbanked poor who could be reached globally by 2012;
• an in-depth look at unbanked mobile money users in the Philippines today;
• and a survey of more than 40 operators, vendors and other industry actors.

The aim is to help mobile operators drive initial adoption and progress towards more sophisticated offerings, such as savings and credit. Some highlights after the jump….

• Mobile Money user average revenue per user (ARPU) is 74% higher than non-user ARPU, with unbanked users on average spending US$9.40 per month and non-users spending US$5.40 per month in the Philippines;
• In addition to non-direct benefits like increased ARPU and reduced turnover of customers (churn), mobile money also has the potential to deliver up to US$5 billion in direct revenues for mobile operators by 2012 on the basis of being adopted by up to 364 million unbanked customers;
• It is estimated that there will be 1.7 billion unbanked customers with mobile phones by 2012;
• An estimated 3.5 billion people worldwide currently lack access to formal financial services.

Should mobile network operators succeed in addressing concerns of unbanked customer, market forecasters envision sharp growth in mobile money uptake. And while the Philippines is one of the first markets to see some uptake for mobile banking, other regions, notably Africa (think of M-PESA’s success) are likely to follow suit.

Across Africa, Latin America and Asia, the number of people who do not have a bank account but do have a mobile phone is set to grow from 1 billion today to 1.7 billion by 2012. These ‘unbanked mobiled’ individuals represent a compelling market opportunity for operators. However, to successfully address this opportunity, operators – in the Philippines and beyond — must base mobile money offerings on a thorough understanding of the complex financial lives of the unbanked.

Want to know more? Watch this space. And better yet, join us at the 2009 Mobile Money Summit.