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Countering a common point of view, Liberty Street Economics claims that on the policy front, physical distance from a bank seems not to be what keeps the unbanked away, and so motivating or compelling banks to open branches near the unbanked may not reduce their numbers. In fact, in the FDIC's 2015 survey, only 2 percent of unbanked respondents cited "inconvenient location" as the main reason why they did not have a bank account. Far more important reasons were "not enough money to keep in account," "don't trust banks," and "account fees too high." Those issues merit more attention than banking deserts.

Mobile money has grown quickly in Africa and other countries with large unbanked populations. The activity and market share is attracting international and US investment and could herald a change in US options and activity for the unbanked or underbanked.

2020 Mobile Money Milestones: >300 Mobile Money providers; 1.2 billion accounts; Africa: 55.2% of all providers; 43% of new accounts (2020) in sub-Saharan Africa

Definition of Mobile Money from IMF's Knowledge Bank

The closing of thousands of bank branches in the aftermath of the 2007-09 recession has served to intensify societal concerns about access to financial services among low- income and minority populations, groups that are often affected disproportionately in such situations. These sorts of concerns were expressed recently by, among others, researchers Terri Friedline and Mathieu Despard in an article in The Atlantic.1 We explored these concerns from the perspectives of those living in existing banking deserts as well as those who are dependent on isolated branches that, if closed, would create new deserts.

The rapid uptake of mobile money in recent years has generated new data needs and growing interest in understanding its impact on broad money. This paper reviews mobile money trends using mobile money data from the Financial Access Survey (FAS) and examines the statistical treatment of mobile money under the IMF's Monetary and Financial Statistics (MFS) framework. MFS guidance is straightforward in most cases, as many jurisdictions have adopted regulations which ensure that mobile money is captured in the banking system and thus in the calculation of broad money. However, in cases where mobile network operators (MNOs) act as niche financial intermediaries outside the banking regulatory perimeter and are allowed to invest their customer funds in sovereign securities and other permitted assets, mobile money liabilities may remain outside the banking system as well as monetary statistics. In that case, information on mobile money liabilities need to be collected directly from MNOs to account for mobile money as part of broad money.

Gates Foundation report on the impact of Mobile Money on Poverty. Good stats and evolution.