Africa banks on cell phones
Global Post reports on how millions in Ghana are entering the banking system through mobile phone system.
“Nobody stands to benefit quite like Africa’s increasingly powerful telecom companies, the conglomerates who built this continent’s cellular towers and enable its calls.
“These guys are going to be more powerful than Google, more powerful than Microsoft, within the locality in which they operate,†Amankwah said. “Already, telecoms move more money than the banks. And they have control over the channels — it’s their sim card. You’re using their network.”
NPR’s “Talk of The World” (their occasional global variation of “Talk of the Nation”) was about exposing – mostly to Americans, I suppose – the broader range of mobile usage around the world, for banking, and so on. It doesn’t look like they’ve archived the different calls – those I heard were varied and interesting – but the program is listed at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104663767