'Unbanked', kids pushing for mobile banking

Bank of America might be celebrating reaching one million mobile banking customers, but there are millions more set to do their financing over their phone, according to analysts Juniper Research, and a significant proportion of those will be coming from users who have never had a bank account or credit card before.

Some 41.5 billion mobile financial service transactions will be made by the end of 2011, according to Juniper, with the Far East and China expected to use mobile finance the most. The region will see 250 million people adopting mobile financial services within the next few years.

It’s interesting to note that Juniper reckons aside from the “unbanked”, the other big push to mobile financial services will come from kids between 13 and 18 who can’t get credit cards and so will end up using their phones as an online payment mechanism. Surely this is something Visa and friends should be looking at – turning mobile phones into prepaid credit cards?