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The use of mobile banking is an increasingly important component of national and regional economic development in Southern Africa. Mobile banking can help bring the large unbanked population into the formal financial sector, and can facilitate cross-border trade by easing the difficulty for small businesses and traders to make financial transactions.

For mobile banking to reach its full potential in Southern Africa, however, African governments must establish more efficient regulatory frameworks and implement well-designed pilot programs to gain more insight into the challenges facing a full rollout of mobile banking

This paper explores the reach and use of m-money among the bottom of the pyramid (BoP) in the Philippines using survey data from LIRNEasia’s 2008 Mobile 2.0 surveys. It looks at m-money’s potential and actual use for remittance among internal and external migrant workers and their families. The results are triangulated with focus group data and literature on mobile and electronic money, and framed using Van Dijk’s (2006) Stages of Access to digital technologies.

Although usage of m-money among the BoP remains low, the ICT infrastructure for this is in place. Compared to other Asian countries where the survey was also conducted, Filipinos are more familiar and have higher trust in mobile electronic transactions. Managing their resistance to change from current offline remitting practices remains a challenge.

The ‘dual system’ thesis has been used to describe the continuing commitment of urban migrants to the village in various African countries. According to literature, urban workers maintain strong ties with the rural area, even after spending a substantial amount of time in the city. One way in which these ties are maintained is through urban‐to‐rural remittances.

In March of 2007, an m‐banking application called M‐PESA was introduced into the Kenyan market. This application allows for person‐to‐person (P2P) transfers of e-money via mobile phone, and facilitates urban‐to‐rural remittances.  This study will use ethnographic data collected in a Kenyan slum to show that M‐PESA is becoming a tool for the maintenance of urban-rural relations. It will further assert that because it is helping migrants to maintain such relations, it is facilitating survival in the ‘dual system’.

This HPG Briefing Paper reports on a study into
the role that remittances play in crises. This
work explored how affected people use
remittance income to survive and recover from
crises, the effect that crises can have on
remittance flows and the way that humanitarian
responses consider the role of remittances. The
study was based on a review of relevant
literature, as well as detailed case studies in
Haiti, Pakistan, Somaliland, Sudan, Indonesia
and Sri Lanka. The study concludes that, while
remittances should not be seen as a panacea or
substitute for humanitarian action, there is clear
potential for humanitarian actors to do more to
explore the complementarities between
emergency relief and people’s own efforts to
support friends and family in times of crisis.