Kenya is an excellent example of where mobile technology is helping extend financial services to people who otherwise might have trouble securing them. Communications provider Safaricom Ltd. allows people to transfer money using a mobile phone. Business Week reported last year that 6,000 Kenyans a day, including some who live in remote villages, are signing up for the service, known as M-Pesa. Safaricom was formed in 1997; Vodafone acquired a stake and management responsibili-ty for the company in 2000.

Much closer to home, a San Francisco company called m-Via is taking part in this world-wide trend. It is pulling together pieces to build a global mobile transaction network. It helps clients provide mobile solutions for their customers and citizens, some of whom don’t bank in the traditional way. “Mobile remittances will have a profound impact on the developing world by making remittances cheaper, faster, and more convenient, as well as giving the unbanked the ability to engage in cashless transactions for the first time,” explained Kruszka.

“M-Via’s vision is to enable every person, whenever and wherever they are, to send and receive money, and conduct financial transactions with any other person in the world,” the company’s Web site explains. “The ubiquity of mobile phones, the fastest selling consumer device in history, provides the ideal mechanism for wherever-whenever financial service delivery.”

The ultimate key to success will be achieving acceptance and enthusiasm from the public.  “It’s about the consumer understanding how to use their phones to make payments, being aware of the benefits and understanding that the transactions are safe,” Nierinck said. True enough. But the technological blueprint is also important, and for that American companies are looking closely beyond our borders. The international community, especially Asia, has a big head start, and Europe and Africa are also moving forward. Their unique settings and challenges and collective successes and failures will help inform U.S. decision-making in the very near future.