2015年考研英语阅读精选：mobile phones
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The idea that mobile phones bring economic benefits is now widely accepted.
In places with bad roads, few trains and parlous land lines, they substitute for
travel, allow price data to be distributed more quickly and easily, enable
traders to reach wider markets and generally ease the business of doing
business. Leonard Waverman of the London Business School has estimated that an
extra ten mobile phones per 100 people in a typical developing country leads to
an extra half a percentage point of growth in GDP per person. To realise the
economic benefits of mobile phones, governments in such countries need to do
away with state monopolies, issue new licences to allow rival operators to enter
the market and slash taxes on handsets. With few exceptions (hallo, Ethiopia),
they have done so, and mobile phones are now spreading fast, even in the poorest
parts of the world.
As mobile phones have spread, a new economic benefit is coming into view:
using them for banking, and so improving access to financial services, not just
telecoms networks. Pioneering m-banking projects in the Philippines, Kenya and
South Africa show the way. These “branchless” schemes typically allow customers
to deposit and withdraw cash through a mobile operator's airtime-resale agents,
and send money to other people via text messages that can be exchanged for cash
by visiting an agent. Workers can then be paid by phone; taxi-drivers and
delivery-drivers can accept payments without carrying cash around; money can be
easily sent to friends and family. A popular use is to deposit money before
making a long journey and then withdraw it at the other end, which is safer than
carrying lots of cash.
There is no need to set up a national network of branches or cash machines.
M-banking schemes can be combined with microfinance loans, extending access to
credit and enabling users to establish a credit history. Some schemes issue
customers with debit cards linked to their m-banking accounts. All this has the
potential to give the “unbanked” masses access to financial services, and bring
them into the formal economy.
What can governments do to foster m-banking? As with the spread of mobile
phones themselves, a lot depends on putting the right regulations in place. They
need to be tight enough to protect users and discourage money laundering, but
open enough to allow new services to emerge. The existing banking model is both
over- and under-protective, says Tim Lyman of the World Bank, because “it did
not foresee the convergence of telecommunications and financial services.”
In many countries only licensed banks are allowed to collect deposits. Even
if a mobile operator forms a partnership with a bank, its agents may have to
comply with banking rules covering everything from the height of the counter to
the installation of alarms. Financial institutions may have to provide detailed
statements to the central bank every week, which is tricky for organisations
with agents in remote areas. Some countries have rigid rules on the documents
demanded of anybody opening an account, which excludes many.
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