We're livin' in sci-fi times--"Mobile Financial Services"...

[Volpone]

Nearly Half a Billion Mobile Financial Services Customers in 2013, Says ABI Research
General Press Releases
January 17th, 2009

Mobile technology market-watchers are always on the lookout for the next “killer app,” and according to ABI Research, mobile financial services are very likely to become the “next big thing” that will attract many millions of consumers.

“Mobile financial services have the potential to be bigger than mobile TV and premium mobile content in terms of numbers of subscribers,” says senior analyst Mark Beccue. “They have the broadest demographic appeal: almost anybody over the age of 18 is a potential user.”

Mobile financial services are of three kinds: mobile banking (essentially a mobile form of today’s online banking), mobile domestic person-to-person payments, and international person-to-person payments.

While mobile banking services are likely to find their greatest market in the industrialized world, mobile domestic and international person-to-person payments may be game-changing developments in less prosperous regions, enabling commerce, extending services to rural regions, and possibly even helping people previously excluded from the financial system to lift themselves out of poverty. ...

I got this through a marketing newsletter I subscribe to, so take it with a grain of salt, but we really are livin' in science fiction times.

Remember how, in 80s and 90s cyberpunk stuff you could just transfer funds to accounts? Or how in the beginning of this decade you'd (theoretically) uses your PDA to "beam" contact info to another person? Well now they want to put it onto your cellphone. Just think. You'll walk up to a Coke machine, point your cell phone at it, and get a Coke. Maybe you'll be stuck in a meeting and be able to plug more time into your parking meter.

The future's so bright I gotta wear shades.

 

[ctmelvital]

Actually, this is already pretty big in Africa. Using mobile phones for banking, getting prices on stuff they're selling etc - there were a couple of articles in the Economist a while ago. Not sure how it'll work out in the industrialized world but in less developped nations this is certainly a big thing because they pretty much skipped landlines and moved directly to cellphones.

 

[Volpone]

Yeah, the article talked a bit about that.

Huh. I wonder how it relates to the Zimbabwe economic collapse.

 

[ctmelvital]

I doubt they still have cellphone reception in Zimbabwe. :bergman:

 

[Ancalagon]

Actually, this is already pretty big in Africa. Using mobile phones for banking, getting prices on stuff they're selling etc - there were a couple of articles in the Economist a while ago. Not sure how it'll work out in the industrialized world but in less developped nations this is certainly a big thing because they pretty much skipped landlines and moved directly to cellphones.

I read that one too.... Really big with farmers. Considering how shitty the roads are, they can't afford to drive around to different markets to check out prices.

Considering the average wait time in Kenya for a landline is 97 years, and about the same in other countries cell phones are HUGE.