Obopay and Grameen Solutions have entered into an alliance to use mobile technology to deliver banking services to a billion of the world’s poorest people by 2018.

The Grameen-Obopay 'Bank A Billion' initiative will provide access to affordable financial services, including cross-border remittances, money transfer, payments, savings and credit accounts. By empowering life and work endeavours with mobile technology that is ubiquitous even in the most impoverished and remote corners of the world, Grameen-Obopay are looking at bringing the full power of banking to those who need it most.

"I was inspired to found Obopay when I was volunteering in Africa and saw that while people in remote corners of the world often lacked access to the most basic financial services, they almost all had mobile phones," explained Carol Realini, CEO of Obopay. "We are thrilled to embark on a partnership with Grameen Solutions, and look forward to working with them to bring mobile banking services to people everywhere."

With more than 3 billion connections to GSM mobile communications networks currently active globally and emerging markets responsible for 85 percent of new connections today [as per figures from GSMA], mobile technology can effectively deliver financial services to billions of underserved people on every continent. Until now, even the most basic financial services have been unavailable to the world’s poor because they are physically inaccessible and/or far too expensive to be practical. Using mobile technology to deliver banking services overcomes previously limiting restrictions of space and time by using existing infrastructure to give even the most underprivileged access to financial services.

Grameen Solutions' CEO Kazi Islam explained, "We carefully evaluated globally available mobile money service providers with a view to identifying a partner that fits with our vision and mission. Obopay is clearly that partner, and we look forward to maximising the global potential of mobile financial services with them. By using a technology that is already pervasive — the mobile phone — we will clearly be able to have a dramatic impact on global poverty."

Working initially in Mumbai, India and in Bangladesh, the Grameen-Obopay 'Bank A Billion' initiative will begin delivering services in October 2008.