Jim Rosenberg

• Report: Apple Ranking System Key to Success at App Store
• Mobile money seen as chance for world’s poorest
• Protecting the vulnerable
• GSMA Introduces Premier Online Community for Mobile Money
• Zain, Western Union in cross-border money transfer deal

Just over a year ago in Cairo, we convened the first Mobile Money Summit with our friends at the GSMA, DFID and IFC. The diversity of the crowd was fantastic - people from all over the world and all sorts of business - from mobile network operators to vendors to financial institutions. It might sound corny, but Hannes Van Rensburg captured the mood quite well: “A general spirit of: ‘Let’s build the industry’ rather than criticise each other prevailed.” (Mobile Payments have arrived)

Today’s the second and final day of this year’s Mobile Money Summit, and the key words here are data and partnerships:

Data - around the market opportunity for mobile money - by the year 2012 CGAP and GSMA estimate there will be 1.7 billion people with a mobile phone but not a bank account and as many as 364 million unbanked people could be reached by agent-networked banking through mobile phones;

Partnerships - a slew of deals announced yesterday illustrate the momentum around mobile banking services, notably: Visa Launches First Commercial Mobile Payment Service in Latin America. Read the rest of this page »

• SAP, PlaNet Finance to invest in shea nut industry in Ghana
• India lays 3G auction plan to raise Rs242bn
• Kenya: Mobile banking laws should not restrict capital inflow
• Understanding the Mobile Money Customer: an Interview with John the Taxi Driver
• Bad times are good for m-banking

Mobile phones may have a huge role to play in expanding access to finance. But does the company that operates the mobile network need to actually provide financial services? Or should others offer financial services, with the mobile operator merely providing the underlying wireless connectivity? The fact that mobile phones can be used as transactional devices doesn’t necessarily mean that the mobile operator needs to “own” the financial service.

That’s the subject of a new CGAP brief authored by Ignacio Mas and me. Read it here.

• Mobile money to poor seen $5 billion market in 2012
• Teams cable launches in Kenya
• Is this the end of the banking hall?
• Vivendi Named As Possible Bidder for Zain’s African Networks

Our friends at Microfinance Podcast have just posted this interview with Nick Hughes, who has been instrumental in getting M-PESA up and running.

Nick was at an event we did in Washington and you can watch that here.

• Zain plans cross-border money transfer service
• Union Bank of India: ‘Transactions via alternative channel scale up to 23 pc’
• Cellphones undergo smart wallet test
• Indians Fast Turning to E-Payments
• Fiserv White Paper on Profitability of Mobile Financial Services

…so said Daryl Skoog, Chief Technology Officer,  Opportunity International - one of three panelists at our webinar on information systems and microfinance. He was referring to the fact that we all have a ways to go when it comes to getting the right technology to microfinance organizations in remote areas where electricity, let alone connectivity, is available. We took questions from the audience and through our website - read those here.

Watch the video:

http://streaming3.worldbank.org/ramgen/CGP/2009-06-03/CGAP_BBL.rm

Technology is consistently cited as one of the greatest challenges faced by microfinance institutions (MFIs) around the world. It is widely recognized that technology is invaluable for improving efficiency, accuracy, increasing outreach and reducing costs. However, many MFIs lack sufficient funds to invest in suitable backend technologies, or operate in regions where access to critical infrastructure – such as the internet – remains scarce. Still others sink funds into poor technology investments, or simply choose not to invest, limiting their ability to grow and compete.

The occasion for the webinar - the results of a new survey on MIS for MFIs. We thank our speakers:

• George Conard, Executive Director, Mifos Initiative,  Grameen Technology Center
• Xavier Faz, Senior Technology Advisor, CGAP
• Jiten Patel,  Vice President and Chief Information Officer,  FINCA
• Daryl Skoog, Chief Technology Officer,  Opportunity International

The IS Fund is a joint initiative of CGAP and the EU/ACP Microfinance Programme. The European Commission’s support to the Technology Program is part of its Microfinance Programme for Africa,
the Caribbean and Pacific (ACP), which aims to contribute to poverty reduction through the development of more performing and effective financial services for poor people.

• Africa’s upwardly mobile money
• Kenya: Mobile Banking May Be a Reality
• Nonprofits Sometimes on Cutting Edge of Technology
• TowerGroup: Mobile Banking Hits Mainstream in 2009
• Gartner: Users of mobile payments to double by 2012
• Time to Cash Out: Why Paper Money Hurts the Economy

I was thinking last week…why not share a round-up of links at the end of every month - in case you missed something. What do you think? For the month of May on the CGAP Technology Blog:

• We started hearing voices - Claire Alexandre and Jonathan Donner, respectively of Vodafone and Microsoft Research India, on the future of branchless banking;
• Lauren Reese revealed that technology is still a rough patch for microfinance, as we found in her interviews with two microfinance institutions about their experiences with information systems;
• Olga Morawczynski of the University of Edinburgh shared her observations on how Kenya’s M-PESA changed after election unrest there;
• Mark Pickens posed the question: Can access to finance strengthen social safety nets?
  
• And Smart Money’s Maybelle Santos sent this dispatch from the Philippines on how mobile banking and microfinance are working together.