Let's be optimists for once

So that was Boston. That was hearing Bill Gates talk about delivering financial services to the unbanked via their mobile phones.
    And a lot else besides. But all the rest of it - another time.
    The unbanked - the exceptionally poor, with no credit records and hardly any money - can't get into the banking system because they can't give satisfactory answers to any of the "know-your-client" questions that banks are obliged to ask these days. So they can't put money in the bank. Or borrow from banks.
    But they do have phones. Mr Gates' suggestion is that banks could develop very simple savings accounts, phone-based, that could be exempt (because they're so small) from all that fandango about producing ID and a utility bill, yada. Fine notion, and I'm in favour. I like the thought that the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation has the clout to make it all happen.
    IT is pretty reliable nowadays, and although I suppose we have to acknowledge the occasional eccentricities of the average (smart)phone, and the tendency of wifi connections to be slow or to drop completely, and the whole thing about losing your phone, dropping it, forgetting to charge it,* this could be real. Check this out.
    Come on - let's be optimists.

*And all the things people say about regulators. And banks.