The World Bank’s grant to give a start to m-banking

To become one of the first countries whose citizens bank primarily via mobile phones – this is the aim of the Maldives which initiated a new project of introducing a new pioneering system.

In order to enable the islands' residents to make money transactions swiftly without the need to travel to the nearest branch which can turn out to be miles away, a single system was arranged to unite all the country banks.

In April a $7.7 million loan was granted to the Maldives on behalf of the World Bank. This allowed the state to start launching mobile banking. The Maldives are considered an ideal place to start up such kind of service; the country has  a relatively high GDP and a great number of people using mobile phones.