Simple mobile banking: learning from developing countries

Abstract

Despite their simplicity and manifest usefulness, mobile banking systems have hardly developed in the world’s richest countries. On the other hand, some mobile banking initiatives have obtained resounding success in developing countries, as is the case of M-Pesa in Kenya. Among the reasons justifying their acceptance are context factors specific to those countries, and to be precise, the difficulty of accessing traditional financial services. But without ignoring these circumstances, an intelligent design during the exploitation phase is what has made mobile banking go from a fortunate concept to a successful innovation. This is why there are a priori no barriers preventing a similar process from occurring in developed countries as well. In fact, the profitability of initiatives such as M-Pesa is seducing enough to assert that, in spite of internet-through-mobile banking being available in smartphones, simple mobile banking can serve niche markets in wealthier countries such as the unbanked or those technologically weakly-equipped or weakly-skilled.