CGAP released new report on the future of mobile banking

CGAP, a microfinance group based at the World Bank, and the U.K.'s Department for International Development (DFID) released a new report "Scenarios for Branchless Banking in 2020". The report is the product of a six month scenario-building project that engaged nearly 200 leaders from the fields of technology and finance from more than 30 countries.
Four scenarios on the future of branchless banking are considered in the report. In all of them the adoption and use of branchless banking services is forecasted to extend by 2020. But in two of the scenarios, bursts of rapid speed-up are followed by periods of decline or flatter growth.
The great attention is paid to poor people who are presently unbanked but will use the branchless banking methods such as mobile phones and the internet in perspective.
UK Minister for Trade and Development Gareth Thomas said: "The poor are kept in poverty when they are financially excluded. This means they lack safe places to save money, the opportunity to invest in their future and cannot reduce the risk of their savings being lost in natural disasters. Governments and the private sector both have a huge role to play in ensuring investment are made to deliver technology-based financial services to billions of poor people."
Today branchless banking is growing in most countries being often a result of the expansion of conventional banking channels, such as branches and automated teller machines (ATMs). Its significant benefit is its low cost compared with the physical businesses premises. But at the same time its reach to date in most countries is limited. Branchless banking usually befalls in the presence of such factors as industry belief in future profitability, enabling regulatory change, a dramatic fall in connectivity costs, the creation of cash-handling agents using existing networks, and persistent promotion of potential of branchless banking.
The report sorts out four forces which will shape branchless banking for 2020. The first one is demographic changes which will influence very deeply. The role of activist governments as regulators of the financial sector, providers of social safety nets, and providers or encouragers of the rollout of low-cost bank accounts and financial infrastructure will significantly increase. Consumers' confidence in electronic transactions will be shaken because of the rise of electronic crime. The cost of financial transactions will be reduced owing to Internet browsing via mobile phones and that will attract new players to financial segment.
CGAP and GSMA researchers have found that across Africa, Latin America and Asia, the number of people who do not have a bank account but do have a mobile phone is set to grow from 1 billion today to 1.7 billion by 2012. These "unbanked mobiled" individuals represent a compelling market opportunity for service providers.