...packed into a city half the size of Sydney.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-02/27/content_17311272.htm

Oooph!

... and your point is? 

Too many people!

7 billion and growing...

est 10% have bank accounts. (wild guess, but my point is, most don't)  A relative works for Barclays getting Africans to have bank accounts, and that is a figure from talking to him.

And the point is that most don't and cannot live anywhere close to the consumption rate of people on this board... at the moment.

>bank accounts. (wild guess, but my point is, most don't

I would guess that 20-25% of the US real (includes undocumented, not in census) population also does not have bank accounts, nor do they ever have enough cash to start one.  Without it, an extraordinary amount of their time and money go to just keeping up with routine items.

Thats quite high really isn't it.  I remember discussing the problem of people getting their benefits cheques, not having a bank account with my relation working at Barclays.

He had talks with Dan Ariely about how to stop people basically cashing their cheque, loosing 10% in the process, and then finding cash in pocket, so p*ssing it up the wall, instead of buying food for the family or paying other bills.

apparently we are less likely to do it if we have a bank account to pay into.

So how different would the world be, if everyone had a bank account? all 7 billion... Time to get into Banking

Oh, and mobile banking, with micro payments......  in Shanghai.

This guy goes through trends in world population.  If I remember correctly he predicts that Africa will be the next boom.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz_kn45qIvI

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/it-is-expensive-to-be-poor/282979/

>africa

Yeah, that's why facebook et al are balls-to-the-wall on trying to get something working there.  We had an article here about fb leveraging their feature phone there.

>banking

We sell 'money orders' to the poor here. Fees on top.  Our postal system is big in that market, I believe.  And food stamps are now issued on a debit card, which is a related issue regarding them not having cash in their pockets.

>africa

I see war for most of Africa until the old colonial borders fall.  During which time the West, China and India will loot natural resources.

<added>

One in four (28.3%) of all U.S. households conduct some or all of their financial transactions outside of the mainstream banking system. They're called the "underbanked" or "unbanked".

http://www.forbes.com/sites/halahtouryalai/2012/09/17/who-needs-banks-number-of-americans-without-bank-accounts-rises/

>Too many people!
Yeah, good point. Too many for the planet infact, but that's a whole other story.