Orange’s decision to buy a 65% stake in France’s Groupama Banque will do little to transform mobile financial services in the era of PayPal, Apple Pay and soon, the most disruptive of them all, Facebook m-banking. In their quest for digital transformation, mobile operators are too far behind the web giants to dominate a new era of payments and banking – at least in the mature markets. As the 27% growth in Vodafone’s M-Pesa mobile money service last year indicates, MNOs need to cast their eyes further from home to get a strong position in the financial services value chain. The real opportunities lie in emerging economies, where there is a greater need for alternative approaches to the traditional banking…