Independent microfinance centre CGAP has entered a new partnership with the UK Department for International Development (DFID).

Under the terms of the deal, CGAP and DFID are set to expand ongoing global efforts to use information and communication technologies (ICT), especially mobile phones, to increase access to basic financial services for the poor. In addition to a 2006 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and CGAP funding, DFID will provide GBP 8 million to the CGAP Technology Program.

The announcement builds on more than six years of work on mobile banking and access to finance. Within this interval, CGAP has provided financing and technical advice to projects with more than a dozen providers in Asia, Africa and Latin America to develop banking solutions, and has conducted policy assessments of 13 countries.

Communication technologies such as point of sale devices and ATMs, but also notably mobile phones, are increasingly connecting poor people to the financial grid. With CGAP technical support and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funding, CGAP’s project partners in India, Mongolia, Pakistan and the Philippines have created mobile phone-enabled savings accounts aimed at reaching poor, unbanked consumers.

According to a 2009 CGAP survey, there are 2.7 billion people globally who don’t have access to basic banking services.

DFID’s best known grant for financial inclusion was a challenge grant to Vodafone which helped create Kenyan mobile money transfer service M-PESA, which in three years has reached an estimated 8.5 million people.