Today's Financial Times reports about what will probably be the ultimate digital virtual currency, and it ain't bitcoin. It is a mobile-phone text-based payments system invented in sub-Saharan Africa called M-Pesa. This is a way to pay for goods and services using funds from your cellphone account. M-Pesa means mobile money in Swahili, the lingua franca of Kenya, from which the system has spread.

Today Vodafone Group plc, a major UK-based cell-phone operating company, number 2 worldwide by subscribers and revenues (after China Mobile) began to offer M-Pesa in Europe, starting with Romania where VOD has 8.3 mn subscribers. Only a third of them have bank accounts. Romanians currently pay everything with cash.

A mobile phone text message is all that you need to pay bills and shop using M-Pesa. All the seller needs is another mobile phone. You can also deposit cash or withdraw it from licensed agents (ATMs are few and far between in Romania and other emerging markets.

Vodafone licensed and launched M-Pesa in 2007 on its Safaricom network in Kenya. Since then it has been spread to Egypt and India, as well as non-Kenya sub-Sahara African countries like Lesotho and Mozambique. Of course the system pays off for the telco, which gets transaction revenues plus the float. And it also makes its customers less likely to switch telcos as competition for basic cheap calling services increases.

More for paid subscribers starting with a 2013 reports from two companies plus news from China, Mexico, Spain, and Colombia. We have bad news from Britain, Canada, and Ireland; good from Israel and Canada; and ambiguous news from China, Israel, Brazil and more.

*Guangshen Railway reported audited results for 2013 under International Financial Reporting Standards. GSH revenues rose 4.7% to RMB 15.8 bn on passenger volumes up 7.5% offsetting declining freight haulage revenues down 4.97% because of slowing domestic growth in China. Freight transport nonetheless rose 19.28% during the year because GSH consolidated some branch lines and handline stations, and upped the cost per tonne of freight haulage by 1.5 RMB cents.

Consolidated profits rose to RMB 1.274 bn, or 18 RMB cents down 3.4% from 2012 levels. EPS came to 18 Chinese cents, down from 19 in 2012.

For 2014 GSH forecast growth in both freight and passenger levels during "a new period of development" as long as the PRC "maintains stable growth" and permits "marketization reform" of the railroads and opens up the railways to compete not only against highways, canals and air transport, but also against each other.

A dividend of 8 RMB cents was declared for 2013 down not only from 2012, but suffering from the recent decline in the RMB against the dollar. I have not had time to calculate this. Read on for why.

*Your editor got a 535-page incomplete report in English on 2013 and Q4 from Delek Group of Israel, a conglomerate, DGRLY. Finding the bottom line was looking for a needle in a haystack. I can see why the Israeli authorities want to require fewer layers of control for listed companies in future under its "concentration law." High time.

To begin with the bottom line, found about 60% down in the report, 2013 net income amounted to NIS 740 mn, an increase of 59% over 2012. EPS was not given and the number of shares seems to have changed year-to-year among other things from options exercised.

Group operating profit grew to NIS 1.7 bn, up 57% increase, on sales of NIS 38.466 bn essentially flat. Q4 was not as pretty. Net fell to NIS 125 mn from NIS 207 mn in Q4 2012. Revenues were up ~3% to NIS 10.064 mn. Operating profit figures I decided because of changes are meaningless.

To get operating profits DGRLY added back actuarial gains (its original business was insurance), and added and subtracted assets available for sale, deducted impairment on goodwill (goodwill figures were not provided in English), and currency translation changes. So the whole exercise is not comparable.

Readers know that Delek is developing Israeli offshore gasfields by essentially betting the farm. In 2013, its leading shareholder, Yitzchak Tshuva (who now calls himself Sharon for some reason) replaced his personal guarantee to Israeli banks which lent Delek or its subs money for this with other collateral, by selling (and de-consolidating) US fuel operations (in Q4), putting its UK roadside restaurants on the block, and other smaller transactions of which we know nothing.

As it is, the breakdown in revenue figures from year to year both for Q4 and 2013 as a whole are wildly different. Oil and gas earnings in 2013 hit NIS 1.283 bn from NIS 853 mn a year earlier, mostly from changes not in the US (expected) but from European fuel operations, of which too many details were provided. In Q4 overseas income (non-Israeli) came lower in at NIS 275 mn vs 326 mn in Q4 2012. And if that were not bad enough, NIS 444 mn of other adjustments helped sales in 2013 less than other adjustments of 468 mn the Q3 before.

I would like to guess that 2013's lower US capital loss of NIS 128 mn (from 2012's NIS 555 mn) has something to do with the sale of shares of its US refinery and gas station arm which produced NIS 2.4 bn of gains but that would be guessing. There is a US insurance arm, Republic, which might have had some problems which turned NIS 2.4 bn in the black into NIS 128 mn in the red.

Within Israel, even after the asset sales, Delek is in every business from selling autos (Mazda and Ford) to running an assisted living firm. Outside Israel it is in businesses like desalination (in southern Califormia, discovered by our biotech maven Patti) to Republic Insurance, a sub.

The whole door-stopper report fails to tag just what is consolidated in the end.

Political risks, apart from the need to produce better consolidated reports and remove layers of control include environmental risks, anti-trust, and worker protection laws, both in Israel and in different European countries.

I hope Mr. Tshuva (or Mr. Sharon, whatever he calls himself now) knows the situation and that his auditors have correctly classified all this material. I have no idea.

Delek declared an overall 2013 dividend of NIS 160 mn (no idea how much per share as I am unsure how many shares are now out). The dividend per share was not released nor record date. Also worrying is the Israeli government claim for higher fees and more gas for Israeli needs from Leviathan, all still equally vague.

*Good news US news for a Israeli stock. Teva is up sharply (6.9%) on a temporary reprieve for its blockbuster Copaxone treatment for multiple sclerosis. The US Supreme Court will hear Teva's patent appeal against Momenta (with Sandoz-Novartis) which first filed to market the generic. The other generic producers include Mylan plus (just last week) a Dutch contender, Sythcon BV. According to Teva, it will not face US generics competition until the Supremes reach a decision and Israeli sources say it may take until Sept. 2015. The patents were to end in May 2014. Copaxone is glatiramer acetate.

*Bombardier began operating the first electric train on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv route which, with the Akko-Karmiel line, will eventually include 150 double-deck carriages with improved speed, 37% more capacity, and improved fire and tunnel safety. BDRAF (of Quebec) may also benefit from Israel Railways' exercising its option to convert existing cars to electricity too. The contracts run until 2020.

*More Canada good news is that US drinking water and sewer pipelines are reaching the end of their lives and need to be tested and monitored before they are replaced. This is the business of Pure Technology, PPEHF of Canada, a small cap specialist in inspecting the physical condition of pipes. Municipalities will happily spend money on inspection to find weak spots in the hope that they won't have to replace their systems.

*The difference between a long-shot biotech play like Prana Ltd., down in the dumps today after failure of its phase II trials for Alzheimer's, and a drug company with a pipeline like GlaxoSmithKline is that GSK has more than one phase III trial going. GSK today withdrew its application for Votrient against ovarian cancer form the EU because overall survival data did not support the drug.

GSK's heart drug darapladib also failed phase III (STABILITY) follow-up trials against heart attack and stroke according to data presented yesterday at the American College of Cardiology Congress. The drug came with Human Genome Sciences when GSK bought that for $3 bn in 2012. It is no longer being tested against stroke but there may be some coronary patients for whom it works. This is not good for GSK all the same and the share is down a bit despite both sterling and Wall St. being up.

*The other UK bad news is that Royal Bank of Scotland is under investigation along with Swiss banks and both JPMorgan and Citi for manipulation of Swiss foreign exchange markets.

*In Ireland CFO Charles Dockendorff sold $6.58 mn of Covidien shares Mar. 28 as reported to the Dublin Stock Exchange. The amount is high given his job. Moreover, CEO Jose E. Almeida sold $3.6 mn worth of shares in Feb. However, the stock keeps going up.

*Banco Santander rose to a new 12-mo high in Madrid trading today. SAN.

*Agrium rose to a new high in Toronto today. AGU may have benefited from being named their top fertilizer pick by brokers at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. CIBC cited its retail dominance, solid agro fundamentals globally, and the prospects of another big US corn crop after weather delayed planting.

*Martin Ferera points out that Veresen (FCGYF) is building its Jordan Cove pipeline for about C$1 bn/mile while rivals are paying as much as 6 to 8 times more based on 2012 estimates. They are Shell, CNOOC, Petrobras, Spectra, BG (sold), and Chevron. Given the complexity they may wind up spending even more. FCGYF has an edge with approvals in hand.

*Canada's Scotia Bank raised its rating for Saneamento Basico de São Paulo to buy with a 2014 target price of Rs2.77 vs 2.55. We sold because the main reservoir of the waterworks company is nearly dry. It cut its EBITDA (cash flow) estimate by 15% and figures the share trades at under 6x EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.) I am not prescient enough on Brazilian drought conditions to make a contrary guess but fear extreme regulatory risk with SBS being essentially controlled by São Paulo state. SBS reported earnings today up 0.6% to Reais 1.91 bn for 2013 despite a 5.4% rise in net operating revenues and an 11% rise in EBITDA, to Rs11.3 bn and 3.6 bn respectively.

*The Canada bad news is that the International Monetary Fund noted in a report today that too-big-to-fail banks including Bank of Nova Scotia still presents risks by lending at lower cost than it should. The IMF's Gaston Gelos argues that there remains a high "probability that systematically important banks will be bailed out."

*Cameco will end its British conversion accord with Springfield Fuels Ltd at then end of August because there is insufficient demand for the uranium hexafluoride used for light water reactors from CCJ customers. By ending early, CCJ wil have to pay a fine of US$18 mn to SFL.

*The Brazil good news is that Cosan, CZZ, is up 2.6%.

*The other Brazil news (mixed) is that Gemstone Equity Research (a registered investment adviser) called VALE a good buy at the current "depressed price." It cited Chinese forecasts for high demand for imported iron ore later this year and cost-saving moves by Vale. Your editor is less positive. While Vale is trading at under 15x trailing p/e, much is riding on how much iron ore China needs, and how high Vale can push prices and profits.

VALE risks losing the whole of its Simandou (Guinea) iron ore investment because of the likelihood that the BSG Resources stake it bought for $500 mn in 2010 from Israel's Beny Steinmetz had been acquired by bribery under the former regime, not even counting the construction since then.

*Colombia's Ecopetrol landed 11 blocks around the US Gulf of Mexico with the most competitive bids last week under Lease Sale 231.