World Bank cites RP as model

A World Bank study has cited the Philippines as a model for mobile banking, which give the poor a tool to access bank services.

The study done by the Consulatative Group to Assist the Poor, a group funded by the World Bank, said mobile banking use mobile phones to bring financial services to people who would otherwise have no access to banks.

It noted that there are more than one billion people worldwide who are unbanked, yet have access to mobile phones. “and by 2012, that number is expected to grow to 1.7 billion people,” it said.

The study estimated the global mobile financial services market at 3 billion people. It projected that 364 million, low-income, unbanked people could use mobile financial services by 2012 and that mobile network operators stand to earn $7.8 billion in direct and indirect revenues from serving clients in 2012.

Among developing countries, the study that the Philippines provides a window to mobile banking. About 1.6 million or half of the active mobile users in the Philippines are unbanked, and 26 percent of active users have incomes below $5 per day. –Roderick T. dela Cruz, Manila Standard Today