A cool video on the rise of the mobile payment system M-Pesa in Kenya.  I think it had a lot of valuable lessons on the success of an alternative payment system.

http://blog.usaid.gov/2013/04/video-of-the-week-animating-m-pesa/

EDIT*  BTW still looking for someone to design some logos for me, will pay 40 VTC for a few nice variations of the logos.