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Does Public only facilitate social investing in for-profits, or, does Public also facilitate social 'investing' (really granting/donating) to non-profits that are focused on social impact, sustainable development, etc.?  

While many are spellbound by the cashless-society zeitgeist, there is a growing understanding that large portions of societies - the unbanked - will face worse difficulties in cashless societies (Finextra recently shared a warning-report that ~17% of UK population would be negatively impacted).  The other major issue stewards of DFS/MFS initiatives own responsibility of is the risks of herding societies into completely digital economies in the current climate of cyber-crime still outpacing cyber-security sophistication. Cashless societies face under reported risks of being potential financial cyber-slaughterhouses.  Forms of DFS/MFS remain magnificent innovations to help improve the lives of billions of the unbanked and underbanked, but complimentary with cash due to these two fundamental environmental limitations of today's reality (access is not ubiquitous and inadequate cyber-security).      

ATMIA has an important perspective about cash still having a important role - now and in the future.  Just as financial inclusion is about more than just the banking industry, financial inclusion is about more than DFS.  Keep in mind not only cash's no-prerequisite conditions advantage (certainly a challange for KYC related issues), but if anything, cyber-security concerns are growing, plus other 'things' happen (from this week's total outage of M-Pesa in Kenya to the February 2016 Ugandan Communications Commission decision to abruptly order the disabling of all mobile money platforms for ~4 days).  Those with cash were not nearly as impacted as those more reliant on DFS in these examples. At least for the foreseeable future, let's be honest with what the true meaning of financial inclusion is. (Even those who have never seen cash of any form have at least been involved in a form of financial inclusion that is bartering).   

How is this Telefonica Germany-Fidor mobile banking service similar and different than:
1) Orange's mobile banking in Poland & France?
2) Telenor banka in Serbia?
3) KDDI-Jiban in South Korea? 

To clarify, Telcos (as well as others such as the retail JV: CurrentC) have not succeeded with proximity payments ... nor have the marquee giants.

I agree that banks have nothing to fear from Telco/Carriers but for a different reason.  To say Telco efforts at payments have bombed fairly universally demonstrates a lack of awareness of the big picture of Telcos in the Payment Industry.

Telco/Carriers have been the quiet giant globally at financially including unbanked populations (serving a significant role in helping to reduce the total from ~2.5B to 2.0B per World Bank).  Where have Telco/Carriers been (quietly) hugely successful at payments (beyond "proximity payments")?

- Carrier Operated Mobile Money, now available in almost 80 countries and a global business of >$2B.
- Direct Carrier Billing, now available in about 120 countries and a global business of >$12B, projected to grow to ~$25B in the next few years.

The next wave of innovation in payments has almost 3 dozen areas where Telco/Carriers are quietly pioneering.  Here are a few examples:
- Central Bank licensed Telco/Carrier providers of financial services are coming:
  * 4 of the 8 remaining Payments Banks in India involve Telco/Carriers
  * 2 of 4 Super Agents in Nigeria are Telco/Carriers
  * Myanmar just recently licensed a Telco/Carrier to provide Mobile Financial Services
  * Mobile banking services are being provided by Telco/Carriers in at least France & Poland (Orange), Germany (Telefonica), Serbia (Telenor Banka) & South Korea (KDDI JV w/Jiban)
  * South Korea's Financial Services Commission licensed Telco/Carrier KT Corp to be an Internet Bank
  * In Pakistan, Telco/Carrier Telenor is in a JV with Tameer for microfinance
  * In Bangladesh, India & Kenya, Telco/Carriers are providing insurance (micro, agriculture/farming, hospitalization insurance)
  * In Côte d’Ivoire a Telco/Carrier support crowd funding

The list goes on of visionary, innovative, courageous Telco/Carriers that are trying to address unaddressed financial service needs not being met by traditional providers.  Threat to banking?  No as banking is not serving these areas (primarily rural communities, poor communities) ... yet again, proximity payments get the lions share of media attention.  

More specifically what we see again and again and again is that the "proximity-payment" use case of m-payments/mobile payments is not addressing a market pain point nor marketplace interest.  

In parallel, quietly, the "remote-payment" use case of m-payments/mobile payments continues to become a multi-billion dollar global business ... yet the lions share of media attention continues with proximity payments.

Even in the proximity payment space supported by telco/carriers, there remain quite a few initiatives still trying.  It would be interesting to hear success-news on the following various models and efforts which are understood to have proximity payment capability:

- TCash Tap (Verifone MM, PT. Finnet & Telkomsel) - Indonesia
- MyWallet (Deutsche Telkom) - Germany
- MobileWallet/MobileMoney (Dhiraagu) - Maldives
- Telenor Wallet (Telenor) - Hungary
- Beeline (Tacom) - Tajikistan
- MobileWallet (BSNL) - India
- T SmartPay (SK Telecom) - South Korea
- MobileWallet (Vodaphone & Siminn) - Iceland
- WyWallet (Telenor, 3, Telia, Tele2) - Europe
- Dash (Singtel) - Singapore 
- Tele2Wallet - Estonia
- Jio Money (Reliance Jio) - India  

Kudos for this innovative idea, along with the commitment by the partners to proceed.  While not mentioned in the article, this idea suggests compelling potential for financial inclusion globally.

John BaRoss
Founder & President
FINCCLUDE.org 

So who is noticing an emerging trend with Carriers/Operators/MSOs/Telco's and Banking?  (i.e.: Besides this telco 'Internet Bank' is SK; in 3Q15 the Rerserve Bank of India licensed 5 telcos to become 'Payments Banks'; in 4Q15 the Reserve Bank of Nigeria announced moving forward with licensing 3 telcos to operate banking services as 'Super Agents'; while in 1Q16 Orange announced a bank acquisition and plans to launch banking services in France in 2017, elsewhere in Europe soon afterwards.  

FINCCLUDE.org noticed this trend in Carrier Commerce ... one Carrier Commerce sector of approximately a dozen quietly emerging sectors of Carrier Commerce globally (i.e.: Carrier Mobile Money, Direct Carrier Billing, Carrier Mobile Wallets, Carrier eMoney, Carrier Transit Commerce, Carrier Financial Services, Carrier Healthcare Commerce, Carrier Education Commerce, Carrier Crowd Funding and more).   

Congrats to Orange on their visionary move into banking services. Impressive to see the quiet FinTech sector that is Carrier Commerce grow into so many subsectors:
1) Direct Carrier Billing[DCB]/Direct Operator Billing[DOB] in >110 countries
2) Carrier Mobile Money[CMM] in >60 countries (DCB+CMM now reaches ~97% of world's population)
3) Carrier eMoney (CeM) in UK
4) Carrier Licensed by Financial Reguator (CLFR) in India (Carrier/Operator Payments Banks) and Nigeria (Carrier/Operator Super Agents)
5) Carrier Crown Funding (CCF) in Côte d’Ivoire
6) Carrier Financial Services (CFS) in Kenya
7) Carrier Transit Commerce (CTC) in New Zealand
8) Carrier Mobile Wallets (CMW) in Canada, Germany, Indonesia, Maldives, New Zealand
9) and now Carrier Bank Services (CBS) in France and Poland

John BaRoss
Founder & President
FINCCLUDE Incorporated 
(Financial Inclusion Now, Carrier Commerce Leading a Ubiquitous Digital Economy)
www.fincclude.org