By Tashmia Ismail & Khumbula Masinge - December 2011
Access to, and the cost of, mainstream financial services act as a barrier to financial inclusion for many in the developing world. The convergence of banking services with mobile technologies means however that users are able to conduct banking services at any place and at any time through mobile banking thus overcoming the challenges to the distribution and use of banking services. This research examines the factors influencing the adoption of mobile banking by people at the Base of the Pyramid (BOP) in South Africa, with a special focus on trust, cost and risk
Data for this study was collected through paper questionnaires in townships around Gauteng.
This research has found that customers in the BOP will consider adopting mobile banking as long as it is perceived to be useful and to be easy to use. But the most critical factor for the customer is cost; the service should be affordable. Furthermore, the mobile banking service providers, both the banks and mobile network providers, should be trusted. Trust was found to be significantly negatively correlated to perceived risk. Trust therefore plays a role in risk mitigation and in enhancing customer loyalty.

We make available new critical macroeconomic financial indicators to the research community. Nothing is more powerful than a phenomenon whose time has come. What is the macroeconomic empirical context of growing mobile banking? Perhaps one of the deepest empirical hollows in the financial development literature has been the equation of financial depth in the perspective of money supply to liquid liabilities. This equation has put on the margin, a burgeoning phenomenon whose time has come: mobile banking.

In the first empirical assessment of the incidence of mobile banking on financial intermediary development in Africa, we use two definitions of the financial system: the traditional IFS (2008) and Asongu (2011) measures of financial sector importance. When the conception of a financial system is based only on banks and other financial institution (IFS, 2008), mobile banking has a negative incidence on traditional financial intermediary dynamics of depth, activity and size. However, when a previously missing informal-financial sector component is integrated into the definition (Asongu, 2011), mobile-banking has a positive incidence on informal financial intermediary development. Three major implications result from the findings. (1) There is a growing role of informal finance in developing countries. (2) The incidence of the burgeoning phenomenon of mobile-banking cannot be effectively assessed at a macroeconomic level by traditional financial development indicators. (3) It is a wake-up call for scholarly research on informal financial intermediary development indicators which will oriented monetary policy; since a great chunk of the monetary base(M0) in less developed countries is now captured by mobile-banking.

Javier Alonso, Santiago Fernández de Lis, Carmen Hoyo, Carlos López-Moctezuma and David Tuesta - May 2013

The low levels of banking penetration in the Mexican population, as compared to other Latin American countries, present the challenge of increasing the range of financial services towards new markets through the use of technological advances and innovative channels. Mobile phones are an attractive way to promote that range, given their extensive presence in the population and their capacity to rapidly and securely connect to carry out a transaction. In recent years, regulatory changes in Mexico have enabled us to establish favorable conditions for the development of the market for mobile banking: a regimen of simplified accounts, an extensive network of banking correspondents and specific regulations for mobile accounts. This new regulation, in some ways, followed in the steps of other international experiences in which the models based on a range of financial services through mobile telephony led to significant advances for the financial inclusion of the population without access to banking services.

The Peruvian economy in recent decades has grown in step with growth in the financial system. However, banking penetration as a proportion of GDP has remained static at around 30% which is below other countries in the region, even those with lower GDP per capita. Access to products in the formal financial system is especially difficult for rural or low-income households. In line with the interesting international experience in other emerging countries, the E-Money Act was passed in 2012 with the main aim of increasing levels of financial inclusion. The high level of penetration of mobile technology in the country makes it an attractive channel for expanding financial services, since it is accessible and used every day by most of the population: according to the ENAHO 2011 National Household Survey, 75% of households have a cell phone (24 million lines in a country of 30 million inhabitants). This paper aims to set out the current state of development of mobile banking and estimate the potential demand for mobile banking as well as e-money. To achieve this aim, we use survey information to discover the main socioeconomic characteristics of individuals as well as the determining factors for their preferences regarding the use and frequency of mobile banking and connected services. Looking at the information from different angles and with different filters, one can see that at income quintile level, the development potential for mobile banking averages around 40%, taking into account the current availability of mobile devices and the current level of banking access. The highest potential is in quintiles 2 and 3, where it runs above 50%. When this information is segmented into educational levels, the highest potential is among those with secondary school education, where it is around 70%. This is due to a combination of high cell phone penetration and low access to the banking system. These results point to an major opportunity for developing mobile banking, taking advantage of the wide prevalence of devices, much higher than current banking access. It could be used as a tool for accessing the financial system, especially for those groups who are currently excluded.

Abdul Kabeer Kazi and Muhammad Adeel Mannan Khadim Ali Shah Bukhari, Institute of Technology (KASBIT)
4 April 2013
In this research paper we investigated the determinants likely to influence the adoption of mobile banking services, with a special focus on under banked/unbanked low-income population of Pakistan. The adoption of mobile banking services has been a strategic goal, both for banks and telcos. For this purpose, Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was used, with additional determinants of perceived risk and social influence. Data was collected by surveying 372 respondents from the two largest cities (Karachi and Hyderabad) of the province Sindh, in Pakistan using judgement sampling method. This study empirically concluded that consumers’ intention to adopt mobile banking services was significantly influenced by social influence, perceived risk, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use. The most significant positive impact was of social influence on consumers’ intention to adopt mobile banking services. The paper concluded with discussion on results, and several business implications for the banking industry of Pakistan.

Policy Research Working Paper 6652, Eva Gutierrez and Sandeep Singh

Mobile banking services offer great potential to expand financial services, particularly payment services, to the poor. They also provide a convenient and cost effective way to access bank accounts. This paper constitutes a first attempt to explain statistically what factors contribute to mobile banking usage, with a particular focus on the regulatory framework. The authors construct an index that measures the existence of laws and regulation that support mobile banking activity for 35 countries.
Using variations in regulatory environments across these countries and armed with newly released data on mobile banking usage by approximately 37,000 individuals in these 35 countries, the paper sheds light on the importance of laws and regulation in supporting mobile banking. The analysis finds that a supporting regulatory framework is associated with higher usage of mobile banking for the general population as well as for the unbanked.

Klein, Michael; Mayer, Colin (2011), Working paper series // Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, No. 166
Mobile banking is growing at a remarkable speed around the world. In the process it is creating considerable uncertainty about the appropriate regulatory response to this newly emerging service. This paper sets out a framework for considering the design of regulation of mobile banking. Since it lies at the interface between financial services and telecoms, mobile banking also raises competition policy and interoperability issues that are discussed in the paper. Finally, by unbundling payments services into its component parts, mobile banking provides important lessons for the design of financial regulation more generally in developed as well as developing economies.

Traian SURCEL, Felician ALECU, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest
The mobile banking involves the use of some mobile telecommunication devices (such phones or PDAs – Personal Digital Assistants) in order to complete, in a secure manner, banking transac-tions (like payments, transfers, account information and so on). It doesn’t matter where the user is physically located. Also, the hour when the services are requested is not important anymore, because, thanks to the internet banking, the offices are virtually opened 24 hours per day.
The ProCard system represents a suite of applications used to perform mobile banking. It was intended to be a universal solution that allows EFT, Internet and mobile banking in a single package. No special software or hardware is required.

Samuel Maimbo, Tania Saranga, and Nicholas Strychacz
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.

X. Wei, B. Hu and K.M. Carley (2013)

Key Pousttchi and Martin Schurig, University of Augsburg. 2004
Mobile banking is a subset of electronic banking which underlies not only the determinants of the banking business but also the special conditions of mobile commerce. This paper analyzes customer needs and expectations from the mobile applications’ view and from the banking view in order to derive a defined set of requirements. Based on these results, existing mobile banking applications are assessed. Their major shortcomings are explained, opportunities for their improvement are shown and the impact of upcoming new technology is discussed. The outcome of the paper is a defined set of customer requirements to mobile banking applications, the identification and assessment of four standard types of current mobile banking applications and an explanation of major failure reasons along with opportunities for their improvement

Tiwari, Rajnish; Buse, Stephan; Herstatt, Cornelius - January 2006
Mobile Commerce is gaining increasing acceptance amongst various sections of the society. This growth can be partly traced back to technological and demographical developments that have been influencing important aspects of the socio-cultural behaviour in today’s world. The need/wish for mobility seems to be the driving force behind Mobile Commerce in general.
Mobile Banking, availment of bank-related financial services via mobile devices, builds a cornerstone of Mobile Commerce. An empirical survey of customer acceptance conducted within the frame of our research clearly reveals a major, growing interest in Mobile Banking. However, since the degree of interest and the willingness to pay vary for individual services, it seems to be necessary to design specific services taking the needs and wishes of relevant target groups into consideration. Banks ought to therefore employ mobile channels with a clear business-focus.
This paper examines the opportunities for banks to generate revenues by offering value-added, innovative mobile financial services while retaining and even extending their base of technology-savvy customers.

Michael King - Trinity College Dublin, October 2012
Is the mobile banking revolution overcoming the tyranny of distance to bank infrastructure and improving financial inclusion in sub-Saharan Africa? Focusing on Kenya, this paper uses Global Positioning System (GPS) data to investigate the importance of distance and time to bank branch for personal access to both formal banking services and the mobile banking platform M-Pesa. Evidence suggests that greater distances and time to bank infrastructure reduce the likelihood an individual is formally banked and that despite the significant expansion of the bank branch network in Kenya (2006-2009), the negative relationship between distance to bank branch and the likelihood of being banked has increased. In contrast, evidence is found to support the hypothesis that mobile banking in Kenya is overcoming the tyranny of distance to bank infrastructure for the financial inclusion of all economic groups in Kenya.

Vanessa Ratten - Faculty of Business and Law,
Deakin Graduate School of Business, Deakin University,
70 Elgar Road Burwood, Victoria 3125, Australia - E-mail: vanessaratten@gmail.com
Abstract: This paper focuses on the role of entrepreneurship and e-finance in determining a person’s intention to adopt mobile banking. The approach utilised in this paper is to develop a conceptual framework that includes a number of propositions that are developed and justified by the literature. The main findings of this paper are that people’s entrepreneurial inclination and learning tendency will determine how they respond to marketing and knowledge about mobile banking. The practical implications are that financial institutions involved in e-finance can focus their marketing efforts at increasing people’s exposure to mobile banking.

Achraf Ayadi - 2005 - E-mail: achraf.ayadi@int-evry.fr
The convergence of the Internet and mobile networks creates new opportunities and applications. Treating mobile business as simply an extension to the traditional web could result in missing out unique differentiated qualities for new value-added possibilities. Mobile Banking is considered to be one of the most value-added and important mobile service available. The current research examined technological changes in mobile networks and innovative attributes of Mobile Internet. It has advanced the theoretical framework of innovation in service to develop a customer centric analysis of mBanking value proposition. The article goes on to discuss critical factors in the diffusion of mBanking and explores reasons of failure and further prospects of success.

Felician ALECU, Bucharest, Romania, alecu.felician@ie.ase.ro - 2007
The future of mobile banking will be represented by such applications that support mobile, Internet banking and EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer) transactions in a single user interface. In such a way, the mobile banking will be able to cover all the types of applications demanded at the market level.
The parallel processing of credit card bank transactions could be performed with the help of a grid network. Excluding some limitations, the grid processing offers huge opportunities to exploit the parallelism. For this reason, a lot of applications of waiting queues in grid processing were developed in the last years. Grid networks represent a distinctive and very modern field of the parallel and distributed processing.

Tiwari, Rajnish; Buse, Stephan; Herstatt, Cornelius - 2006
The increased need/wish for mobility amongst various sections of the society, particularly amongst professionally active groups, is confronting credit institutions (banks) and other enterprises offering financial services, with challenges to adjust their service portfolio in a way to best suit the needs of their customers. On the other hand it also opens up a new arena of opportunities by making it possible to offer innovative, value-added services so as to not only cater to the needs arising out of the mobility but also by actively inducing demand for new, mobility-centric services.
This paper examines strategic implications of these changes in customer behavior as perceived by the banks. It introduces the findings of a bank survey conducted by the authors in Germany. The survey discovered that banks expect Mobile Banking to gain greater relevance in near future and are positioning themselves not to be left behind.

Melissa Siegel1, Maastricht Graduate School of Governance, Maastricht University
Sonja Fransen, Maastricht Graduate School of Governance, Maastricht University
Mobile remittances have a high development potential as they hold the promise of providing quick, easy and cheap money transfers. In Africa mobile phone usage has increased sharply and mobile banking providers are extending their services, enabling greater opportunities for mobile remittances. The rise of mobile banking in Africa, however, differs substantially across countries, mainly due to a lack of financial infrastructure. Consequently, the opportunities that mobile banking offers for mobile remittances vary geographically. The services provided do not always meet the needs of remittance senders and the African remittances market is generally under‐acknowledged as an important market by providers. Restrictive financial regulations play a key role as well. Mobile remittances have the potential to become an important and revolutionary tool for remittances sending in Africa. Effective policies should therefore address the limitations in the regulatory and financial infrastructure for mobile banking to become the foundation for mobile remittances

Fugazzola, Caterina, University of San Francisco, June 2011
At the end of May 2002, China officially became the biggest mobile market of the world, surpassing any other country in the world with its 170 million mobile phone users1. The steady expansion of this market is far from uniform, as the development of information and communication technologies (ICTs) assumes a very different face in the urban, highly industrialized cities than in the less-developed countryside.
Such difference has accelerated the process of social and economic polarization initiated in 1978 with Deng Xiaoping's Open Door Policy, which marked the beginning of Chinese marketization under the declared plan of “letting some people get rich first.” It was years later, during the 1990s and especially after the 1997 financial crisis, that the real change in the government's strategy began to be concretely felt on a citizen level; the official introduction of the term “globalization” as a positive force for economic development “was accompanied by a rhetoric carefully constructed to justify it,” a rhetoric that minimized the negative effects of globalization portraying it “as a process which can be brought under control by the state.”