In February 2012 I wrote a Mobile Money Brief on Mexico for the Clarion MMT Gateway.
One reason why M-Pesa succeeded so strongly in Kenya is there was a need for it. Mexico is one of the other such countries where mobile has the highest promise for promoting financial inclusion.
In this, the second most populated country in Latin America, mobile penetration is 85% as against a banked rate of just over 25%. So it is interesting to track the progress of mobile as it transforms financial services through a totally different model to M-Pesa.
Some of my key observations are:
- Mobiles and shared agent networks could help Mexico overcome scarcity of ATM and POS
- How long before we see the results from the new regulations?
- Prepaid card based services – will they multiply value in the pocket?
The full report is available at the Clarion site, See Mobile Money in Mexico.