This will eventually be solved by a bunch of people building solutions in different countries and one firm sweeping through and buying up the startups

This _IS_ a solution for payments outside the USA. Do you know how many countries with a rapidly growing middle class that Visa, MasterCard, etc won't touch because their crappy credit models can't deal with these people?

This is a game changer that allows people who haven't been able to buy online to do so..

That's interesting. I went to a presentation last year where the presenter (I believe she was from paypal) was saying that the US was many years behind several other countries on payment methods, especially SMS.

Payment methods available to consumers via banks. Yes, other countries are farther ahead.

Online commerce is a different story where the US is far ahead of the rest of the world.