Today's Mobile Minute is focused on mobile money. We've got news about Bharti's financial services in India, Rwanda's new mobile banking guidelines, Digicel's plan for mobile financial services in Haiti, ICT growth from 1998 to 2009, and the popularity of native apps on smartphones.
- The Hindu reported that Bharti Airtel has received a license to offer financial services over mobile phones in India. Although mobile banking services have not yet been launched, the license from the Reserve Bank of India will allow for mobile money transfers of up to 5,000 rupees.
- In Rwanda, mobile banking is becoming a more secure option as "The Central Bank has set guidelines for mobile phone payment systems that will cater for safety, integrity, efficiency and reliability according to a notice on its website," reported The New Times. (via Textually)
- Digicel, a Caribbean telecom, announced they will launch a mobile banking pilot project in Haiti, starting this October. The pilot will allow users to transfer funds and give and receive cash via mobiles.
- ICT4Dblog charted how ICTs have grown around the world, ranking mobile, Internet, and broadband growth over an 11-year period. The site then looked at how these numbers show the digital gap between rich and poor countries, and then reported on: "digital lag: the time gap between a given average ICT penetration level in the poorest countries, and the year that was achieved in the richest countries. Current digital lag is just under 10 years for mobile, and something like 14-15 years for Internet. For broadband, it’s just over 10 years but the figures are so low that this may not be meaningful."
- A report from Zokem, a Finnish mobile analytics company, found that smartphone users' activity on native apps accounts for 50% of mobile Internet traffic. The large study took data from 10,000 smartphone users in 16 countries to arrive at their conclusions.
[Mobile Minute Disclaimer: The Mobile Minute is a quick round-up of interesting stories that have come across our RSS and Twitter feeds to keep you informed of the rapid pace of innovation. Read them and enjoy them, but know that we have not deeply investigated these news items. For more in-depth information about the ever-growing field of mobile tech for social change, check out our blog posts, white papers and research, how-tos, and case studies.]
Image courtesy Flickr user QiFei
Post new comment