Only 47 percent of the world’s population is included in the formal banking system, but 76 percent subscribes to mobile phones. So an opportunity presents itself to banks and alternative issuers alike: Providing financial services or their equivalent to those with no access. Mobile network operators (MNOs) have begun to make strides towards financial inclusion
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Looks like the change in form factor from plastic to digital via smart phone is getting the attention of the larger public. Both Forbes.com and the HuffingtonPost are blogging away on the substitution of mobile for mag stripe. The most interesting paragraph in these posts is one from Tim Chen, in which he says, in part, “if we
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Not only is there no free lunch, there are no free paper napkins. Bear with me. Years ago, when I worked in midtown Manhattan, I used to buy my lunch at least once a week from a really superior and extremely reasonable Italian deli. It had the fastest sandwich line you ever saw. Once the
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Any economist will tell you that it’s not a good idea to gauge the health of the overall economy alone from the position—or the activity—of the stock market. But the Wall Street indices may be just as deceiving in trying to plot where consumer spending is going. The stock market swings of the week of
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The new regulatory environment for banks in the United States is changing one of the most highly valued innovations in the banking industry’s recent history: Free checking. Banks like BB&T and SunTrust have said the new regulations have caused them to trim free checking options, but these actions may have the unintended consequence of driving
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I recently returned from the MasterCard Latin America Caribbean (LAC) regional Leadership Forum in Buenos Aires, and my head is full of the importance of mobile to the future of payments in the region—never mind globally. Like everybody else there I was very impressed with the keynoter, new media expert Robert Tercek , whose message
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