Accelerating the Development of Mobile Money Ecosystems

This report is written on the occasion of the second annual Mobile Money Summit, held June 23-24, 2009 in Barcelona, Spain. The Summit provided an opportunity to take stock of the industry in the year since the inaugural Mobile Money Summit held in May 2008 in Cairo, Egypt. It is clear that, in this time, the industry has grown significantly in scope and sophistication. While the number of deployed mobile money initiatives more than doubled in the last year, reaching more than 120,1 the challenges of realizing mobile money’s full potential – as a market opportunity and as a poverty alleviation tool – have also become better understood.