The Untapped Potential of Mobile Phones
I recently had a blinding flash of the obvious. Much of the social sector is ignoring a vast, powerful layer of infrastructure that can help us all achieve our goals of creating prosperity for hard working, low income Americans: the nearly ubiquitous mobile phone. In places like Bangladesh and Kenya, incredibly valuable innovation is helping connect the poor to the financial mainstream by leveraging mobile phones. Grameenphone is a fascinating, bold example of this.
The potential for mobile technology all became crystal clear for me recently - even if it was a blinding flash of the obvious. In January, I took a two week learning sabbatical to Asia, funded through the Irvine Foundation Leadership Award, where I visited a number of nongovernmental organizations in Hanoi and Manila. I visited outstanding groups like the East Meets West Foundation in Vietnam, and the Knowledge Channel Foundation in the Philippines. Perhaps it was being around the visionary leaders of these groups – John Anner at East Meets West, and Rina Lopez-Bautista at the Knowledge Channel – that helped me understand what an opportunity we have.
Asia is light years ahead of the US in the way people there use mobile phones. I experienced this myself, buying a phone. I got a sim card for my phone when I arrived in Manila and it was loaded with features, including options to make payments to other network users.
In a visit with the Philippines Central Bank, I learned that 10% of the Philippines GDP comes from remittances, much of it sent through mobile phone networks.
Some mobile phone analysts believe that all virtually all Americans will have a mobile phone by 2013. The ubiquity of cell phones among Americans represents a highly underutilized infrastructure to leverage for prosperity. EARN will be focusing our collective intelligence on how to “cultivate our own garden”, to make it even easier for our clients to save, and hope others will join us in finding ways to innovate in this exciting area of opportunity.
We need ambassadors like you, Ben, to open our eyes to the potential for technology to change the landscape of our work dramatically in the years ahead. Thanks for traveling afar and for bringing your insights and inspiration back to us.
In Nigeria, it’s MoneyBox Africa that’s innovating the use of mobile phones for financial management and reaching villages far away from any bank. According to their website, “with MoneyBox Africa, anyone - who can use a mobile phone - can open up an account on the street, save money into the account, topup the phone, pay utility bills, buy insurance, pay tithe, send money to friends and relatives, withdraw money at agent locations, any bank or ATMs, get access to credit and make investments.” This website contains a nice depiction of how the cards are used: http://p55857.typo3server.info/93.html. In the words of the CEO of MoneyBox Africa, this is about “empower[ing] people at the grassroot and help our people create, protect, and preserve their wealth.”
MoneyBox Africa is achieving this trend-setting change in cooperation with paybox, the enterprising company that’s behind mobile payment technology in much of Europe and now in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. And in a move that may predict what’s in store for us in the USA, paybox was purchased in January 2009 by Dublin, CA-based Sybase/365 (http://www.sybase.com/detail?id=1061874). A survey conducted by Sybase predicts that 57% of U.S. banks will add mobile services in the next 12 to 24 months, and that by 2010 America will catch up with Asia and Europe. With fee-based income driving the technological change, what will this mean for low-income mobile phone users? Now may be the time to advocate for an expansion of mobile services that reaches America’s neighborhoods in ways that truly protect and preserve the wealth they hold.
Comment by Jennie Mollica — March 8, 2009 @ 11:15 pm