It has become known as SMS banking and can be used for various forms of money transfer e.g. like purchases, salary payments or cash redraws without bank offices or ATMs being around.
It transpired that mobile phones could be used for other purposes then making phone calls and texting. Mobile banking is an example of a novel type of use for a mobile phone. In the Philippines, SMS has been used to transfer money since 2005. As many people in developing nations do not have access to banking systems, this new service was well received. Besides the cost of using traditional banking services are often too high for the poor effective excluding them. A same service started in 2007 in Kenya and has spread since then across the African continent. It has become known as SMS banking and can be used for various forms of money transfer e.g. like purchases, salary payments or cash redraws without bank offices or ATMs being around. In this way, mobile phone technology has contributed to the economic development and provided many new jobs in developing countries in a similar fashion as landlines did in North America and Europe more than a century earlier.