Overly strict regulators are actually one of the main reasons that banks in developing countries can be such a PITA. Most of these countries in Africa with mob

Overly strict regulators are actually one of the main reasons that banks in developing countries can be such a PITA. Most of these countries in Africa with mobile payment providers have spent a lot of time with banking regulators getting these systems approved and they have received a lot of praise by people in the payment industry for doing so. You idea that easy money transfer allows less control for the state seems to me to be misplaced. This fear of the money laundering is a huge problem in the US and Europe and is stifling innovation. Most people in Africa work in the informal sector, so yes by OECD standards just sending money they illegally made selling Yam at the market back home would in theory be money laundering. However there is pretty good anecdotal evidence that M-Pesa in Kenya is really helping develop the economy from the bottom up.