To most Americans and Europeans, the mobile payments industry is just starting to get off the ground. With Facebook’s option to send money to friends via mobile, new offerings from Square Pay, and the recent release of iPhone 6 and Apple Pay, TechCrunch reports that 2015 seems like the “Year of Mobile Payments.” But the fact is that a lot of these options are way behind what’s happening in other parts of the world.

There’s a distinction between these “mobile wallets” which merely link a user’s credit or debit card to their mobile device, and mobile money, where your phone actually holds the value like a mini-bank. Mobile Money is proliferating in many parts of the world where access to traditional banking is not available to many, and it’s in these places in Africa, South America, Eastern Europe, where mobile money is really taking off, advancing far beyond what is available to people in Europe and North America.

Alix Murphy at TechCrunch writes, that “the latest report by InfoScout and PYMNTS.com revealed last month that 85% of iPhone 6 users still have never tried using Apple Pay, despite enthusiasts’ conviction that transactions will pick up this year. There are places around the world, however, where mobile payments have taken a very different path 89 countries across the developing world, to be precise.”

Read more by Alix Murphy, mobile telecommunications industry professional with experience in electronic and mobile identity, mobile payments and international development sectors, and senior mobile analyst at WorldRemit via TechCrunch.