The GSMA today announced further updates for the upcoming Mobile World Congress, which will be taking place 27 February – 1 March, 2012 at the Fira de Barcelona Montjuïc in Barcelona. The

First launched in Côte d’Ivoire in December 2008, Orange Money is also available in Senegal, Madagascar, Mali, Niger and Kenya, as well as in Botswana and Cameroon. It will soon be launched in Mauritius. At the end of 2011, it reached an important threshold: 3 million customers in the eight countries where it is now offered, thus becoming one of the most powerful mobile money services in Africa.

As we start the new year, we are highlighting some of the major events and articles from the MMU blog during the second half of 2011, including the 2011 Annual Report and MMU’s first Latin American case study.

As we’re winding down for the year, we are highlighting some of the major events and articles from the MMU Blog in 2011, including the 2011 Mobile World Congress and the Mobile Money Summit in Singapore. Today, we bring you the first part of our annual summary.

The GSMA today announced that it will hold the new GSMA NFC & Mobile Money Summit October 22-25, 2012 at the Milano Congressi in Milan. With the growing industry momentum behind Near Field Communications (NFC) and the increased adoption of this technology by ecosystem players around the world, the GSMA has expanded the scope of its established Mobile Money Summit event to more prominently showcase NFC and its many applications.

This month, BPI Globe BanKO, the mobile microfinance bank in the Philippines has announced it is launching three m-insurance products. BPI Globe BanKO is a joint venture between the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), a commercial bank; and Globe/ GCash which offers loans and savings services to individual clients and microfinance institutions (MFIs).

Today, the first of these partnerships comes into being with the formal announcement of the creation of a joint venture to offer mobile financial services for 65 million banked and unbanked Vivo consumers in Brazil. Vivo Brazil is the largest operation of Telefónica in terms of customer numbers.

In light of market saturation, MNOs face the task of growing average revenue per user (ARPU) and market share in rural areas. Agricultural Value Added Services (Agri VAS) present a considerable business opportunity due to the enormous potential user base in LDCs. The farming sector in these countries often suffers from chronically low productivity. However, with increasing teledensity in the developing world – mobiles are uniquely positioned to address the information and financial needs of farmers.

The GSMA today announced that executives from ARM, Best Buy, China Mobile, Citigroup, ISIS, Juniper Networks, Sprint and VimpelCom will be speaking in the keynote programme at the GSMA Mobile World Congress,