The New Nation - Internet Edition

AP, New Delhi

It can scale mountains in a single bound and wend its way down the most wretched roads. It is the mighty cellphone signal, and the latest hope for bringing financial services to the world's masses who don't have access to banks. Grameen Solutions, an affiliate of Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus' Grameen Bank, this month teamed with Obopay Inc., a for-profit mobile payment company based in California, to bring banking to a billion poor people using cellphones.

"Today, it's difficult to reach these people," Obopay India Executive Director Aditya Menon said at a news conference in India's financial capital, Mumbai. "If you solve that problem, you are enabling them to enter the economy."