"It sounds like a joke," said business owner Mauricoa Quintero as he recently paused outside a Wachovia Bank branch in Miami. "But it sounds safer than the turmoil out there right now."

Even though itau alone has 25, 000 cash points, more than 500 municipalities in Brazil lack even a single bank branch.

To bring banking services to villages, Anurag Gupta, a telecommunications entrepreneur, distilled a bank branch down to a smartphone and a fingerprint scanner.