Could Cell Phones Oust Banks? Grameen Solutions Thinks So for 1 Billion Poor People

Many of us take for granted the ease and ability to drop by the bank and roll around what buys the bread. For some, though, banking isn’t a feasible option at all.

Specifically targeting 1 billion poor people in the heavily populated city of Bangladesh, Grameen Solutions recently hopped in business bed with Obopay to inject new money into the Bangladesh economy through mobile banking.

The plan is to unveil a low-cost pilot program in Oct. 2008 for low-income people in Bangladesh. Obopay allows its users to move cash back and forth between bank accounts and credit cards using text messages from cell phones.

For the program to work for low-income people, though, Grameen and Obopay will need to carefully tackle this question: In addition to keeping their banking costs very low, how will their cell phone costs be kept ultra low, too?

If people can’t afford their cell phone, banking in this fashion becomes irrelevant. Redwood City, Calif.-based Obopay is a for-profit mobile payment company. Grameen Solutions is an affiliate of Grameen Bank from Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus.