Bill Gates and the GSMA will promote mobile banking in poor countries

. During his keynote at the Mobile World Congress The GSM Association announced an agreement with Bill Gates and Melinda foundation that will promote mobile banking in developing countries of Asia, Africa and South America.


The 12.5 million dollars of the foundation pemitirán face a series of twenty projects to allow users in emerging countries to transfer money and make payments via mobile phone. These projects will work with mobile operators, most banks, microfinance institutions, governments and NGOs in each country, to bring mobile financial services to the unbanked, as the foundation promotes Obopay and Grameen Bank Non profit.

"There are over 1,000 million people in emerging countries that do not have formal bank account but do have a mobile phone and this represents a clear opportunity for mobile operators and financial institutions," said Rob Conway, CEO of GSMA, as well as the user end is the main beneficiary of these actions.

The idea is to provide this service to some 20 million people without access to banks by 2012, representing a financial market of 5000 million dollars by 2012. The expected total worldwide is 150 million users of mobile banking in 2011.