Better than money?

IRAQ: Under Saddam Hussein, mobile phones were banned in Iraq . Now, five years after the first network was installed, 20 million Iraqis have mobile phones — in a country with a total population of 27 million. For some business dealings, phone cards have become as valuable as cash.

The landlines in the country, many of which were destroyed during the war, are only slowly being rebuilt. In recent years, people have become dependent on their mobiles to communicate. "I love my mobile phone like a baby," Umm Basm, a mother of two children, told The Economist.

Because going out on Iraq's streets, including trips to the bank, can be dangerous, people are also using their mobile phones to carry out money transactions. For example, the lender pays a specified amount at certain shops, or for particular goods, then sends a serial number or code to the recipient's mobile phone as a text message. The recipient can then use the code like a gift voucher.

"I love my mobile phone like a baby" Iraqi Umm Basm

Phone credit as a currency has become so widespread that the United Nation's World Food Programme is delivering aid to Iraqi refugees in Syria in the form of vouchers that are sent to mobile-phones.

But the money substitute is attracting criminals as well. Payment for prostitutes, bribes for corrupt government officials and ransom for kidnapped people are increasingly demanded in phone credit.