I have long been an advocate for small-scale banking and microlending as an effort against payday loans and $100 crises that send people into years' long spirals of debts and insecurity. Transfer fees, money orders, charges on ATM withdrawls, the physical risks of carrying cash and banks inaccessible to "global financial nomads" without huge initial deposits make being poor extremely expensive and unnecessarily punitive for working people. Realini studies innovative solutions made possible by ubiquitous technology, particularly mobile phones, which offer global, no-frills accounts and the ability to take in deposits of checks by photo, swipe credit cards and pay via a chip and pin or QR codes. The security implication is very clear as well--money moved via traditional halwa networks is impossible to trace, but people use the halwa networks because they are starved of other methods. Offer easy, better financial transactions and the halwa fade away, leaving crime and terrorism finances fewer places to hide.

This book has some excellent insights about social entrepreneurship involving Bottom of the Pyramid clientele. I really enjoyed it!