provide the second. There’s a mobile revolution at work – and one built around mobile money. The laying of cables along the coasts of East and West Africa has been accompanied by the arrival of affordable smartphones. In Kenya, they account for 50 per cent of mobile phone sales. But the innovation here has been mobile payments. Equatorial Africa has the majority of the world’s mobile money accounts, linking the unbanked to a world of choice and security often lacking in cash-based operations. How did it come about? A consortium of researchers unearthed that consumers in Uganda, Botswana and Ghana were trading mobile phone airtime as a proxy for currency. This caught the attention of a Kenyan mobile network operator, which supported the launch of M- Pesa – a mobile system for sending money – in 2007. Since then, it has grown in size, scope, and reach. M-Pesa can now be found in many African countries, India and Eastern Europe, and it accounts for fully 25 per cent of Kenya’s GDP. M-Pesa has inspired another business called M-Kopa, which lets people in rural areas pay a small monthly fee wirelessly to have solar lighting and mobile-phone charging in their homes. Other, alternative payment forms are facilitating commerce in previously unbanked communities, ranging from Bitcoin in Afghanistan, to bKash in Bangladesh and Pay TM in India. The mobile money culture has led to some exciting developments. Nigeria had a slower start with ecommerce. There are real barriers to wider adoption of online shopping: cost of delivery, concern about getting the right product and worry about the security of online payments. But enter Jumia, which builds in flexible, mobile- first payment structures and a pay-on-delivery model. It’s now Nigeria’s most trusted ecommerce brand. Finally chamas are credit unions popular in African economies. They offer consumers the means to create “virtual stores” for bulk purchase and distribution to individual consumers. Text messages or bulletins sent through messaging apps provide the access while mobile vouchers and mobile payments help smooth the transactions. The End of Globalization? For marketers and communicators, “right shaping” to this new world is an existential