If Europe = yesterday, the stuff that’s going on in Kenya right could very well = the future.

Consequently, a number of institutions have initiated various innovations and new products to conveniently serve their customers and reduce the long queues that were previously experienced in banking halls.

The up-scaled level is now to use mobile phones to send money to savings accounts and credit provision through the same channels. This is already taking place with M-Kesho type of products in the market.

There’s actually an element of money creation here. Its origins come from shrewd cell phone users realising there was value in the pre-paid airtime credit they purchased on their phones. So say you bought 60 minutes of airtime on your phone, rather than redeem it you could use it to pay for goods and services elsewhere simply by transferring the credits via the mobile network.

Airtime in this way became base money in its own right, due to its more liquid characteristics. A competing currency to the national shilling, issued not by the central bank but by Safaricom, the company.

So rather than redeeming the credits for talk time, Kenyans abstained to use them as a form of money instead.

You could say, they had created airtime-backed money as a result.

And since there’s no incentive to hoard, either in a mattress or in a deposit account (because there is no interest), the velocity of M-pesa rises all the time, enriching everyone as it goes.

Indeed, if there’s enough faith in the system, one might envisage a day when Kenyans opt not to redeem M-pesa units for shillings at all. A day which, of course, would probably make Safaricom the single biggest corporate name in Africa (if it isn’t already).

Which begs the question, could mobile money model be introduced just as effectively in Europe? And in so doing tempt cash out of mattresses and deposit accounts, and generally get money moving through the system? Who’s to say the ECB couldn’t even take on the Safaricom role?

There are approximately [u]60 million mobile money users in the world, which means that almost one in three is a Kenyan.

The cost of borrowing euros for three months fell below a similar dollar loan measure for the first time since 2008, following official benchmark interest rates and government bond yields lower.

The euro interbank offered rate, or Euribor, for three- month loans fell to a record 0.451 percent, as the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, for three-month dollar loans fell to 0.452 percent. It’s the first time since Jan. 3, 2008 that Euribor has been below Libor.

According to Consob, Italy has once again banned short selling of stocks. Italy let its last ban on short selling expire on January 15. Spain has followed suit, as they have also banned short selling on all stocks for the next three months.

Banning short selling is a controversial method to stabilizing stock prices. Noted short seller, Jim Chanos, has previously argued against banning short selling, as he believes it hurts more than it helps.