A report from Juniper Research predicts that money transfer via mobile phone will be a growth market opportunity – users will exceed 500 million globally by 2014, principally in developing countries.

But Juniper’s new report – ‘Mobile Money Transfer & Remittances: Markets, Forecasts & Strategies 2009-2014’ – also foresees that the many new mobile money services being announced will face political, regulatory or commercial challenges as they bring their services to market.

Howard Wilcox, senior analyst at Juniper (www.juniperresearch.com) and the report’s lead author, said: “Every country has different regulatory structures and its own set of local market conditions that service operators need to plan around. Nonetheless, we see this as a growth market because of the ubiquity and convenience of mobiles which offer realistic prospects of financial service access for those without traditional banking services.”

In developing world economies, often only a small percentage of the population has a bank account or a credit card. A larger percentage, however, have a mobile phone or access to one. The reality is that far more people in countries that are underbanked will have used a mobile phone than will have used an ATM or visited a bank branch.

Further findings from the Juniper Research Mobile Money Transfer report include:

• Sophisticated mobile financial services such as loans and savings accounts can add to the attractiveness of mobile money services, and help to reduce mobile operator churn
• Africa & Middle East, Far East & China and the Indian Sub-Continent will be the leading regions for national mobile money transfer services in 2014

The report – available for free download from the juniper website – contains comprehensive six-year forecasting for all the key market parameters including users, transactions and values for national and international transfers, and sophisticated mobile financial services.