‘Leapfrogging’: a Survey of the Nature and Economic Implications of Mobile Money
Mobile money is a recent financial innovation giving financial transaction services via a mobile phone, including to the unbanked global poor. Mobile money technology has spread rapidly in the developing world, “leapfrogging” the provision of formal banking services by solving the problems of weak institutional infrastructure and the cost structure of conventional banking. This survey examines the evolution of mobile money, its important role in widening financial inclusion, and the impact of regulation on the development of mobile money systems. It explores the channels of economic influence of mobile money from both a micro and a macro perspective, and presents the first critical survey of the current state of micro and macro empirical literature on the economic impact of mobile money.