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This recent BBC article discuss how mobile phone technology is being used to assist citizens in developing countries solve everyday problems.

It is thought that mobile phones could become virtual bank accounts, being used to send, receive and save money.

M-banking, as it is known, might help to serve the three billion people who currently have no access to financial services, according to the World Bank.

“Most of those three billion people don’t have a safe place to save money. What ultimately gets people out poverty, and prevents them from being vulnerable to crises, is when they have a nest egg to fall back on”, says Gautam Ivatury, head of technology at Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), a division of the World Bank that is promoting m-banking service trials from Mongolia to Pakistan.

CGAP is helping the development of services that will allow workers to send money to support their families in rural areas, by mobile phone.

Mr Ivatury says many Zimbabweans working in South Africa lose as much as half the amount they take home to their families in bribes at security checkpoints.

M-banking would allow them to send money safely from their mobile phones to those of their families, who would be able to redeem cash from mobile airtime sellers where they live.

Already a Vodafone affiliate, mobile operator Safaricom, has tested a service called M-PESA in Kenya with various partners, including the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID).

Relevance: An example of how development agencies and concerned companies are creating programs for people in developing countries to help themselves using mobile phone technology.