I sat next to a very interesting chap from Sun at the Cambridge Ring annual dinner this year. He was in charge of getting 1 Bn Java SIM cards into the world, cheifly by riding the m-pesa and other mobile telephone payment systems wave. The stranglehold of Western Union is if anything stronger than portrayed, and the opportunity to build a banking and telephony system in tandem greater, particularly in the Middle East and Subcontinent.

We also got a keynote from Maurice Wilkes!

Jan Chipchase's talk at TED tells about how people use phone credit as a method of sending money back home (admittedly from the city to the countryside). Microbanking and mobile phones are two very effective means of improving the economic state of some very poor people. It often amazes me how much we take for granted (free bank accounts, free phones, free bill payment) simply because we've passed the point in our wealth where it isn't economically viable to charge us for those things.