Just a couple days ago, Michael Diamond, Obopay’s SVP of Business Development, revealed to us all that he is a “community columnist” for his very own local newspaper. I, for one, would never have guessed! Anyway, he writes about 6 articles per year to send into the paper, and for his most recent article, he chose to write about our recent Bank A Billion partnership with Garmeen Solutions. It’s a little long for a blog I suppose, but if its good enough for a page on the Post-Crescent Paper, its good enough here.
The poet Emily Dickinson famously observed that “hope is the thing with feathers.” Perhaps if Ms. Dickinson were alive today, she’d agree that hope might also be a thing with a silicon chip and a ringtone.
There are now 3 billion mobile phones active around the world, according to the GSM Association. If that figure weren’t arresting enough, try this one: 85 percent of new subscribers today are located in emerging and developing economies.
The transformative impact of mobile technology and its ability to create “leapfrog” advantages for societies became apparent several years ago when many Latin American countries became the first where mobile phones outnumbered traditional land-lines.
Without mobile phones, many of these people would be further left behind by a world with more sophisticated and cost-effective access to communication. Instead, they leapfrogged the problem and aren’t looking back.
This same transformation is starting in other parts of the globe, and the next several years promise to be exciting as the poorest people begin to access many of the same services that you and I take for granted in our own lives.
Much has been written over the past few years about the challenges facing the world’s “bottom billion,” and how a number of systemic problems having to do with lack of services, education and responsible government keep these people mired in poverty.
The standard of living in the rest of the world is advancing, in some cases rapidly, while the poorest people are left further and further behind.
One of the greatest tools for transforming lives is access to basic financial services. This fact was powerfully demonstrated by Dr. Muhammad Yunus, an economist in Bangladesh who believed that extending micro-credit to the very poor would enable them to invest in their small businesses, and tap into their ambition and innate creativity. “Micro-credit” means making loans in very small amounts — perhaps only a few dollars.
Many of the loan recipients were poor women who were cut off from opportunity by local gender customs as well as geography. Because of the extraordinary gains many poor people experienced, plus his perseverance in the face of doubters, Dr. Yunus was awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize.
Earlier this month, the company I work for and a company founded by Dr. Yunus announced an exciting initiative to marry these two powerful tools together: financial inclusiveness and the mobile phone.
My employer — Obopay — is a pioneer in mobile payments in the U.S. and India. Dr. Yunus founded Grameen Bank to cater to the poorest people in Bangladesh. Earlier this month, in India and Bangladesh, Obopay and Grameen Solutions announced the “Bank A Billion” alliance to use mobile technology to deliver banking services to a billion of the world’s poorest people by 2018.
There are early and exciting examples of how mobile financial services can change lives. Kenya is just one example where a visitor to most Kenyan cities will note the lack of banking services, but also will see the ubiquity of mobile phones and stores catering to mobile subscribers.
People literally bring their cash into the mobile phone store — not the bank — and turn their cash into digital money on their phone, which they use to purchase basic goods and services from others.
In recent years, we’ve all been hearing — and living — the ways in which technology can fundamentally re-order established channels of distribution. The mobile phone has the ability to re-order established financial systems, and in many of the poorest countries, those financial systems are frequently fraught with exclusiveness, expense and corruption.
I believe that, in the next few years, people will begin to leapfrog the system in which they live and transform their lives by leveraging their own creativity and ambition.
This alliance between Obopay and Grameen will attract many participants. The mission of the Bank A Billion alliance points to the fact that this is not about business as usual.
While there are strong commercial opportunities for Obopay’s mobile payments, we will keep our eye on one of the things that we find energizing about the business that we’re in — the power to change lives through a device that can be found on the belts or in the bags of people in every country.
Technorati Tags: Obopay, Garmeen Solutions, Bank A Billion, gsm association, systemic problems, mobile technology, developing economies, Michael Diamond
August 27th, 2008
Just yesterday, Apple released iPhone update 2.0.2 which is supposedly designed to improve communications between the smart phone and wireless networks. This is good news considering, since the release of the iPhone 3G on July 11th, there have been nothing but complaints about glitches and poor connectivity and bad battery life.
The bay area-based company didn’t even acknowledge a problem with is phone until two days ago… only after completing the 2.0.2 patch to offer worldwide. And even then, the description of the iPhone issue was vague at best, as Apple spokespeople decline to specify the Apple part that the patch was targeting, whether it be the antenna and amplifier, the radio frequency transceiver, etc. This is a little bit scary in terms of consumer confidence… if they neglected to tell us about this problem until it was solved months later, are there any other significant problems that Apple is keeping under wraps? For more info here’s an article printing an interview with Jennifer Bowcock, Apple spokeswoman.
Technorati Tags: iphone, iphone 3g, 2.0.2, 2.0.2 update, patch, poor connectivity, consumer confidence, smart phone, glitches, battery life
August 20th, 2008
Its always cool to see our company on big news channels like ABC… Not only because its a great form of marketing for our business, but mainly as reassurance that our product and our vision for global wireless money transfers is something that people take interest in, and something that people would mark as a valuable, benevolent service. Anyway, I couldn’t find the code to embed the video on our website, so if you’d like to see our moment in the limelight, just click here and then click on the second (2) image titled “Pay all your bills with your cell phone.”
Technorati Tags: abc, abc7, obopay, mobile payments, remittances, person to person payment, cell phone
August 13th, 2008
RIM, or Research in Motion, reptorted that sales of all Blackberry mobiel devices jumped by over 2 million devices over the past year. The cell phone giant shipped out 41.9 million units in Q2 of 2008, which toppled their total of 39.8 millions in the previous year. This number indicates significant growth for RIM in the US, a market already fully saturated by mobile phones- It also puts the company over the 10% mark in terms of the US Domestic Mobile Phone market share. For more Q2 market info check out this Reuter’s Mobile News Article.
Technorati Tags: RIM, research in motion, blackberry, thunder, market share, verizon, mobile phone, pearl,
August 12th, 2008
It’s unclear where or when or how, but rumors are most definitely spreading about future models of the iPhone… the iPhone Nano and the iPhone Shuffle. Both of these devices are designed to target the other half of mobile users that purchase “pay-as-you-go” plans, and feature all the main applications of the regular iPhone (they probably won’t have email capability though). Of the two, the Nano version sounds like the more feasible product, or at least the closest to completion, as a Shuffle version would be overly complicated in terms of dialing and touchscreen functionality. Some reports even say that the Nano version is confirmed for release in the UK for just under 150 pounds… but who’s to say for sure. Anyway, here are some images of what the potential iPhones could look like.
Technorati Tags: iphone, iphone nano, iphone shuffle, iphone rumor, models
August 4th, 2008
According to a study done by Javelin Strategy and Research, the American public is significantly cutting back on their credit card usage in wake of our recent economic downturn. With less cash to spend, not only are people showing more conservative purchasing habits, but many are having trouble paying off credit card debt. Here is an exerpt from the report which details the overall findings:
Key Findings in the Credit Card Report:
- 45% of those surveyed say their ability to contribute to savings has decreased.
- 37% of consumers say they are using their credit cards less.
- 28% of those surveyed say their ability to pay off their credit card balance has become more difficult.
- One out of every three consumers said they are buying fewer basic goods.
- 57% of those surveyed say they are more careful about how often they eat out at restaurants.
- 46% of consumers say they are shopping more at superstores like Wal-Mart™ and Target™.
The report is mainly based on data collected from a random-sample panel of 1,500 respondents targeting representative proportions of gender, age and income as compared to the overall US online population. Executive data is based on an online survey collected from a sample of 13 credit card industry executives at top tier credit card issuers in May, 2008.
For more also look to this article by PaymentsNews, which interviews some head executives from Javelin for further insight.
Technorati Tags: credit card, credit card decline, conservative spending, javelin study, javelin strategy and research
July 31st, 2008
Yesterday, there was a huge network disruption over the greater part of Sothern California. People tried to make calls only to find the signal was busy, and were even told by the state to refrain from making non-emergency calls because the 911 networks were inoperative as well. And the cause of this failure? It had nothing to do with the equipment, the cellular network simply couldn’t handle people doing what phone companies want them to do: make phone calls.
In wake of a modest 5.4 earthquake in Chino Hills on Tuesday (a magnitude which knocked over no buildings, street lamps, bridges, or glasses of water for that matter), an 800% spike in cell activity caused the networks to completely overload. And while nothing horrible came from the situation, and the cell network was back to normal by the end of the day, such an event raises the question: what were to happen in the event of a real emergency? I know this sounds like I’m just poking holes and being overly critical, but in a time when cellular phone subscriptions are growing exponentially, isn’t it fair to say that, given any kind of earthquake or attack or national emergency, wouldn’t everyone with a phone be calling to check on their families? And if a 5.4 earthquake can flood the 911 network, could it respond in a more severe situation? I don’t really have any answer here… I just have to say, whatever the event, the key to resolving any kind of crisis is communication and coordination, and for that mobile phones are absolutely necessary. Service providers should definitely take a hint from this temporary blackout, and make sure the network can handle future situations.
Technorati Tags: southern california, earthquake, chino hills, 5.4 earthquake, blackout, overload, phone service, cellular network
July 30th, 2008
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