Your phone is your bank too?

I have to brag about my friend at work JD (pictured above) who went out to Kenya to see how people there use their cell phones, and what they needed from the technology to help them in their everyday lives.

"In December 2007 JD Moore took time out from his day job as a user interface designer for Nokia to visit Kenya and further his passion for contexual user design and its role in developing markets. He ran a series of workshops with Kenyan children, exploring their views on mobile handset design and the features most important to this new generation, which may be the first to grow up with access to wireless technology."

This is some of the stuff JD discovered:

"In what is being touted as a world first, Kenya's biggest mobile operator is allowing subscribers to send cash to other phone users by SMS.... In time, this application will allow people to borrow and repay money, and make purchases. Companies will be able to pay salaries directly into workers' phones - something that has already attracted the interest of larger employers, such as the tea companies, whose workers often have to be paid in cash as they do not have bank accounts."

Just think, your phone could become your bank in the future. JD works on such cool stuff while I am just stuck in the office...not that I'm jealous.