Vodafone has brought its M-Pesa mobile money transfer and payment service to Europe today.

The service, which was launched in Kenya seven years ago, is now being offered in Romania.

A new research report by Berg Insight predicts that revenue from mobile location-based services in Europe will grow from €735 million last year to €2.3 billion (£1.9 billion) in 2018, which is a compound annual growth rate of 25.8%.

Meanwhile, the North American mobile location-based service market is expected to grow at 16.1% per year from $1.8 billion in 2013 to reach $3.8 billion (£2.3 billion) in 2018.

We begin this week's programme by looking at Vodafone's acquisition plans in Spain before moving on to discuss universal mobile chargers and 4G roaming.

There's also time to talk about UK mobile coverage, EE's new customer tracking service, contactless transactions and a smartphone camera that can identify objects hidden behind something else.

Members of the European Parliament have voted on new laws that could see a common type of charger being developed for all mobile phones sold in the EU. The vote also set out new rules for the use of radio spectrum and avoiding potential interference.

This move would cut costs and reduce waste, although it still needs to be formally approved and would then be followed by a three-year period before manufacturers were legally obliged to comply.

Figures from Ofcom’s latest European Broadband Scorecard show that the UK leads the EU’s five biggest economies when it comes to mobile broadband coverage, mobile broadband take-up, mobile broadband choice and general internet usage.

The comparison rated the UK against the other countries in the ‘EU5’: France, Germany, Italy and Spain.