As a service you also have the option to implement your own micro fee for p2p transactions that involve your service, which opens up whole new revenue streams for social finance startups that offer useful services that solve common headaches that the banking industry doesn’t cater for.

Perhaps even more interesting was the stats they have for the amount of money that is transacted outside of the banking system (p2p social lending and people who have no bank account at all in the developing world). It equates to a whole new freaking giant market that currently operates in a clunky, slow, haphazard and unreliable manner.

The example they had on how in some developing countries such as Kenya up to 40% of transactions would take place by archaic means such as paying a bus driver going to another town to take a wad of cash with him to deliver to to someone who lived there, makes you realise how unlevelled things really are.

In that particular example the uptake of mobile payment systems captured around 35% of these social payments within a few short years and allowed people to make instant and secure transactions without using a regular bank or a stranger to they had to rely on to deliver their cash.

This social angle was where the truly interesting developments in payment innovation lay.