Cell phones and the banking industry 0
70% of the population of Brazil, Russia, India and China have no bank account. But how many have cell phones (it is estimated that there are nearly one billion people in all emerging markets)? That’s why investors put eyes on mobile payments. Last week, Actis bought chipmaker MSCC egipicia to dig deep in the activity.
Arthur D. Little predicts that the mobile payments market will be worth 60,000 million for 2015. Anticipates that within five years, the number of people who serve the mobile banking will rise from 32 million today to 290 million. That means there will be more than a million new users per week.
Ambitious goal, no doubt, but mobile payments are a solid foundation.
First, as suggested above, this should allow banks to reach new consumers. The insertion of mobile phones is improving access in Mexico and emerging countries. Thus it is possible that nearly 40% of the population has telephones, but still without access to the bank.
Second, banks can expand very economically. As noted by the FT editor, Sharlene Goff, a few weeks ago, banks can reduce up to 50% of their costs if [for their operations] are based on devices, rather than branches. Read the rest of this entry →