Mobile salary disbursement, coming soon to a treasury near you

Billions of text messages are sent from mobile phones around the world daily. Typically the domain of dinner plans or LOL messages, these texts now include a small but growing number of mobile payment instructions.

A developing world phenomenon, mobile payments come in two general forms -- the most popular being person-to-person P2P mobile money transfers, typified by transfers from wage-earners in cities to relatives in rural areas. But business-to-business or consumer B2X transfers have been gaining traction. Uses for mobile B2X range from collections, both for distributors and small merchants, to salary disbursement to unbanked populations.

Red Gillen, senior analyst at Celent, a Boston-based financial industry consulting firm, has been following the evolution...