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May 15, 2010
 

SO Links: Week 19

As a resource, starting this week, we are posting selected links gathered during our research each week. 

Filed under  //   banking   Brazil   complexity   consumers   India   mobile   money   netbooks   resilience  
Posted by Scott Smith 

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December 1, 2009
 

Turkey's Tech-rich Future?

Twenty-four hours in Istanbul has shown me Turkey is edging toward an advanced information economy. The city is being flooded with technology: digital TV in my taxi, competitive mobile services on offer everywhere, a flood of smartphones, dozens of slick satellite TV channels, SMS banking, mobile broadband, 3G netbooks, and electronics stores stacked the ceiling with flat-screens and every conceivable piece of consumer electronics.

This is of course against a background of per capita GDP around $8,000, and 50% of the income held by the top 20% of the population. Just last year, the EIU placed Turkey's e-readiness at 5.64 out of 10 in its index of ICT maturity. Nonetheless, a competitive market with a growing, status-seeking middle class appears to be enough of a lure for the nation's media, telecoms and product marketers to pour investment into Turkey's wires, towers and airwaves.

Like their peers elsewhere, Turkey's youth are glued to their technology , from mobiles to iPods, so much so that its has trickled up to older Turks as well. This bodes well for growing a stable technology culture, and therefore economy, in years to come. In the face of this, it will be interesting to see how top-down control of digital media, including blocking some services, will be maintained.

Filed under  //   Asia   banking   EIU   Europe   media   mobile   Turkey   TV  
Posted by Scott Smith 

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November 9, 2009
 

Mobile Money Practices

Designing Services for Financial Inclusion

Jan Chipchase posted a great paper and slide deck today summarizing top-level themes in mobile money practices from Nokia's research around the world, and elaborated on some design implications of his teams' findings. 

The compelling Venn diagram from the outset is this: in 2009, there are 3.5 billion people unbanked worldwide, and 4+ billion mobile phones in people's hands on the planet (not Jan's figure, but the ITU). The crossover point is some 1.7 billion unbanked people with mobile phones by 2012. That's a huge opportunity, moreso because of what tapping a percentage of that group might unleash in terms of economic benefit than the profit to be had from enabling it.

Read on and find out more.

Filed under  //   banking   BOP   design   innovation   mobile   money   Nokia   practices   research  
Posted by Scott Smith 

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