[e-gold-list] India M-banking and if e-gold did this they would dominate the world!

[Smiling Curmudgeon]

Wulirider
Pass word wuli


Though I personally no longer can access my e-gold, due to a policy
that I 'missed' whilst traveling the world, thinking e-gold was like a
Swiss numbered account,  the work colleagues and I are doing around
the world, and this article tells it well, reminds me of the
tremendous opportunity for e-gold and the e-currency community to make
a difference.

They could easily bring private access to gold, silver and more
especially in India and then China.  These two countries are much more
'gold' oriented than Americans and would flood to access, buy and use
gold and silver for sure in moving their money around.  Worth
considering.

(Still trying to get my funds, but e-gold just does not make a solid
effort to communicate with me. I call and they don't return calls or
leave a message if they do call identifying themselves. )

If anyone has a suggested 'better' service now for gold and silver for
use other than e-gold, I am open as about to open a much larger
account with some group I can 'trust.'
Noël


Encourage a Bank Revolution by Mobile Phone

by Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar

Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar is a research fellow of the Center for
Global Liberty and Prosperity at the Cato Institute.



The mobile-phone revolution that is transforming the world could also
turn into a banking revolution. In many countries, mobile phones are
already used on a small scale for deposits and remittances. This could
be scaled up to become the new bank architecture of the 21st century.

The biggest potential for m-banking, as it is called, is in India,
where new mobile connections are growing at the phenomenal rate of 6
million per month. Until now, phone connections in India have been
largely urban. But a new policy has provided incentives for telecom
companies to set up cell phone towers in rural areas, where 70 percent
of Indians live. Within five years, mobile operators expect India to
have 500 million connections.

Mobile phones can create virtual accounts in virtual banks. You can
look up your m-bank balance and issue instructions through text
messages. Security can be ensured through multiple passwords. Even
villagers without cell phones can, for a fee, use phones of local
shopkeepers, who are evolving, unwittingly, into virtual tellers of
virtual banks.

When a customer pays cash to the shopkeeper to recharge his m-account,
it is like depositing cash in a virtual account. The customer can
withdraw cash, too. For a fee, the shopkeeper will transfer money from
the customer's m-account to his own, and then pay hard cash to the
customer. This can be extended to the payment of bills.

But if Indian telecom companies are to offer formal m-banking
services, they will need regulatory approval from the Reserve Bank of
India, which worries that banks may be targets for money laundering,
and so insists on a strong "know your customer" policy. The reserve
bank ignores small sums transferred through the shopkeeper network,
but so far will not allow telecom companies to scale up and offer
formal bank accounts, interest-bearing deposits and other banking
services.

As banking regulators have already done in such countries as Kenya and
South Africa, the Reserve Bank of India will likely insist on telecom
companies joining hands with a licensed bank before offering formal
m-banking services.

Yet the Reserve Bank of India has a good reason to encourage
m-banking. It has long spoken of the utopian ideal of a bank account
for every family, even in rural areas. This has been a pipe dream,
given the limitations of the bank branch network. But m-banking could
make the dream come true, even for illiterate villagers. Such
illiterates cannot handle the paperwork of a conventional bank. But
they can deposit and withdraw money through smart cards that can be
recharged with the shopkeepers' help.

The corruption bedeviling subsidies and cash transfers to the poor
could be reduced if the sums were deposited directly in m-accounts of
the beneficiaries. Today, much money allocated to the poor does not
reach them — it is siphoned off by corrupt bureaucrats and
contractors. Safe m-accounts could ensure that only the intended
beneficiaries get the money.

Traditional bank operation is limited by the fact that large swaths of
rural India lack electricity, and even electrified villages often get
power for only six to eight hours at night. Mobile phones can overcome
this hurdle: They need very little electricity, and can be charged at
night.

Rural marketing companies have long used solar-powered batteries to
run Internet kiosks in market centers. These solar batteries can
charge mobile phones at night. Even tractor batteries can be hooked up
to charge cell phones. So cell phones could provide m-banking to
virtually the whole of rural India.

Cell phones are already being used for money transfers. Millions of
rural Indians have migrated to neighboring states (and the Persian
Gulf) seeking work, and they send remittances home. But their families
back home are often illiterate and have no access to banks.

Money orders through the postal system reach all villages, but charge
high fees. Mobile phones transfer money faster and more cheaply than
the postal system, using the shopkeeper network. This is a good start,
but it needs to be scaled up. That means companies need to create new
mobile phone banking ventures, and regulators need to let them.

---
You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: e-gold-list at kobly.com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-e-gold-list-512001C at talk.e-gold.com

Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.