Around the world over 64 countries have some form of Universal Service Fund (USF) (both planned and operational) created with the purpose of narrowing down the ‘Digital divide’. Most of those funds are mainly collected by levying operators (mostly telecom/mobile) in those countries....

The liberalization/opening of telecom markets has brought significant value to customers and markets. The open market contributed to improve the quality of service, price reduction and introduction of competition among service providers. An operator can no longer prosper simply by offering basic...

Across the developing countries, millions of people rely on informal economic activity and local level networks to earn their living. Most of these populations are from bottom of pyramid and they don’t have access to basic financial services/banks as access to them is costly and very limited....