NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Monday, May 12, 2014

It is estimated that 2.5 billion people around the world are unbanked. They lack financial services needed to invest in their livelihoods, protect their assets, and avoid falling deeper into poverty.

Traditional bricks-and mortar banking infrastructure is too expensive to serve the poor, particularly in rural areas. However, over 1 billion underserved people in these markets can access mobile phones, which offer financial services sustainably, such as payments, transfers, insurance, savings, and credit.

GSMA Director General and member of the Board, Ms Anne Bouverot said in the ’State of the Industry 2013 Mobile Financial Services for the Unbanked’ report that mobile money represents a tremendous opportunity for social impact through enabling customers to access services which help them manage their daily lives and improve their livelihoods.

“Since GSMA began collecting and analysing mobile money data back in 2010, our insights from the annual ’State of the Industry’ report have helped to create a better understanding of the reach and the operational performance of mobile money services around the world,” she was quoted in the report.