Second, Kenya has undergone a revolution since 2007, when M-PESA, a mobile-payments system operated by Safaricom, a phone company, was launched (see chart).

ECONOMIST: Kenya��s technology start-up scene is about to take off

In the emerging world , the most famous mobile payments success is in Kenya, where M-Pesa , the P2P payments service of mobile phone supplier Safaricom, has effectively created an alternative banking and payments system.

FORBES: Who's Ready For Mobile Payments? The U.S., Canada...And Kenya

Moreover, Ready believes that a new generation of payments companies will lead m-commerce just as PayPal and three others took over e-commerce payments from traditional credit card payment processors.

FORBES: Braintree Wants to Make Mobile Payments History

Afghanistan pays policemen and other officials their wages using the local version of M-PESA. Tanzania accepts tax payments by mobile-money services.

ECONOMIST: Mobile-money services: Let us in | The

With both M-KOPA and Eight19 models, the lights go out if the payments stop, providing an incentive to keep paying.

ECONOMIST: Solar lighting

All payments for completed tasks are received by mobile phones, using M-PESA, a popular mobile banking service.

BBC: New service is all in a day's SMS

Having tried and failed this morning to register to receive payments under Pingit, I'm not entirely sure what will be the biggest hurdles to its adoption - worries about how secure it is, or frustration at the number of hoops you have to jump through to get going.

BBC: Mobile money - has its moment come?