Mobile money transfers in the developing world are “leap frogging” mobile micropayment in Europe, reports CNN. It could eventually mean big business if they could get even a small piece of the $318 billion global remittances market. Mobile money transfers could do decent business from relatives sending money to their home countries from the US, but it is especially useful in the developing world where people have access to mobile phones, but not to banking. In Kenya, for example, mobile operator Safaricom launched M-Pesa, a service that allows users to transfer money via SMS within Kenya. As CNN notes, a worker in Mombasa can send $3 to his rural relatives, instead of taking a two-hour bus ride to give it to them. His relatives collect the money at any of the small shops or gas stations that are part of the M-Pesa network. Backed by Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) and Citigroup, M-Pesa is much cheaper than Western Union, which has a virtual lock on the global remittances market. But it too will soon have a mobile money transfer service, after launching a test project involving 35 operators earlier this year. Western Union already has a mobile wallet application that targets people sending money to Latin America and the Caribbean.

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