Mobile operators can bring unbanked to microfinance services: Report

Microfinance Focus, Nov 30, 2009: Mobile Network Operators are uniquely positioned to introduce the ‘unbanked’ to financial services, from microcredit loans to person-to-person (P2P) transfers, remittances from migrant workers to their families at home, the potential is huge, according to the report “Mobile Money: Lessons from Emerging Markets”, published by Research and Markets.

The report highlights that in emerging markets, there are millions of mobile customers (and potential customers) that have never had access to banking services. Despite its potential, the mobile money market today remains so far largely untapped. It offers plenty of growth opportunities to the different market players involved and mobile operators are proactively driving initial adoption and creating mass awareness of mobile money services as well as educating customers on how to use these services with the aim of gaining a share of the financial (as well as non-financial) benefits involved.

The report point toward a challenge that mobile money services for unbanked segment will not fetch handsome profit. The target market is largely made up of individuals with little in the way of financial resources and they cannot afford large transaction fees to support the development of the services they need, the report said.

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