Recently in mobile payments Category

Bling Nation, announced today at that Colo.-based Park State Bank & Trust began offering mobile payments to its customers and community through Bling Nation's Community Payments Service Oct. 15.

The Community Payments Service is a secure local debit network, driven by the tap of a cell phone, that enables banks and merchants to avoid costly traditional payments network. As a result, shopping locally is promoted and money is kept within the Woodland Park community. In addition, consumers enjoy the convenience and safety of tapping their cell phones to pay for goods and services without exposing sensitive, personal information. With each purchase, a SMS text message is sent to the consumer with account balance and any rewards program updates.

BOKU, Inc.announced its payments service for global consumers to make online purchases of digital and virtual goods with their mobile phones. The claim they are creating a new standard for the mobile, by bringing bank-grade mobile payments to the web.

The service allows customers to pay for goods both real and virtual by giving their phone number.

The acquired Paymo and mobillcash. The received venture capital funding.

"We're very excited about the future of BOKU -- with Mobillcash's European success, Paymo's international reach, and stellar additions to the management team, the company is now very well positioned to lead the mobile payments market," stated Danny Rimer, Partner at Index Ventures.

BOKU's acquisitions of Paymo and the Mobillcash's payments give them 1.6 billion potential customers in 50+ countries on 170 mobile operators.

The mobile payment industry will experience steady growth, as the number of mobile payment users worldwide will total 73.4 million in 2009, up 70.4 percent from 2008 when there were 43.1 million users, according to Gartner, Inc.

Gartner predicts that the number of mobile payment users will reach more than 190 million in 2012, representing more than 3 percent of total mobile users worldwide and attaining a level at which it will be considered "mainstream."

The mobile payment industry will experience steady growth, as the number of mobile payment users worldwide will total 73.4 million in 2009, up 70.4 percent from 2008 when there were 43.1 million users, according to Gartner, Inc.

Gartner predicts that the number of mobile payment users will reach more than 190 million in 2012, representing more than 3 percent of total mobile users worldwide and attaining a level at which it will be considered "mainstream."

Harris Interactive results surveying people about cell phone use and payments found that:

Nearly 4 out of 5 U.S. adults (77%) receive bills from cell phone and credit card companies, and of these adults, the majority (57%) trust credit cards companies more than cell phone companies when it comes to accurately billing them for a payment;

Older adults are significantly more likely than their younger counterparts to trust credit card companies more than cell phone companies (65% of those ages 55+ vs. 52% of those ages 18-34);

93% of U.S. adults (93%) own a cell phone, and nearly half of these adults (45%) think it's at least somewhat safe to make a purchase through their cell phone with 26% saying they think it's fairly or very safe to do so;

Assuming it was safe to make purchases through cell phones, nearly half of cell phone owners (46%) would be willing to make purchases this way.

PayPal has launched a free Android app for accessing PayPal accounts. The PayPal app offers, direct integration with the contact list, recent history and balance checks.

The PayPal Android app is available on Android Market.

"And, of course, all your mobile payments are kept safe using the same start-of-the-art technology we use on paypal.com," wrote PayPal mobile team member Eric Duprat on the PayPal Blog.

PayPal is also available in MyMoneyManger for Sprint. PayPal can be accessed from a mobile web browser at mobile.paypal.com on a mobile phone. They have a text function that requires activation and a touch-tone phone for the automated voice system to check balances or send a payment.

There are over 70 million PayPal active accounts in 190 markets and 19 currencies around the world..PayPal is an eBay company and is made up of three leading online payment services: the PayPal global payments platform, the Payflow Gateway, and Bill Me Later.

Nokia has invested $70 Million in Obopay by buying of and estimated $70 million worth of preferred stock. Nokia's  eppo Paavolo, will be seated on Obopay's board of directors.

Obopay, allows users send money via text message and charges a 25 cent fee to send up to $1,000 and no fee to receive the money.

It appears the mobile payment war continues and it is expected to continue as more handset makers, credit card companies and carriers want a piece of the payment pie.

Aite Group, senior analyst Nick Holland thinks the battle for mobile payments will continue especially in developing markets and said,

"This investment indicates that the mobile payment landscape will continue to be a territorial battle between financial institutions, mobile operators, card networks, and vendors, all of which firmly believe that they deserve a piece of this still baking pie. Particularly in developing markets such as Africa and India where the case for mobile financial services has already been proven, stakeholders are rushing to capitalize on the opportunity. Aite Group expects to see other handset vendors aggressively positioning themselves within the value chain as the business models for mobile payment begin to solidify."

According to American Banker PayPal's  has an exclusive deal to be the sole payment service provider for the application store that Research in M is developing for its BlackBerry handheld devices.

When RIM opens its app store later this year, all purchases, including those customers make with credit cards, will go through PayPal's system, according to Jack Stephensen, PayPal's senior vice president of strategy and new ventures.

The BlackBerry Application StoreFront is expected in March. Applications were accepted starting in December of last year. The BlackBerry App StoreFront gives developers  80 percent of the revenue back for paid applications and 20 percent is kept to help maintain and pay for the system.

The BlackBerry Application StoreFront will support free applications, paid applications and also monthly subscription billing or try-and-buy models. They plan to support different types of billing models and operate over wireless channels for downloading of applications whether via a cellular networks or Wi-Fi.

Obopay, a provider of mobile payment solutions and Fidelity National Information Services, have launched a person-to-person mobile money transfer service for financial institutions using FIS core processing services.

With the Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) mobile person-to-person (P2P) service, financial institutions can introduce branded mobile payments to their customers, who can immediately send and receive money from friends and family, anytime, anywhere - safely and securely, said FIS."

MasterCard  announced the launch of the MasterCard Over-the-Air Provisioning Service, that enables issuers to perform over-the-air personalization of their cardholders' mobile devices in an easy, one-step process. The service allows issuers to implement PayPass on mobile programs in a reduced timeframe with minimal development and implementation effort. Mobile MasterCard PayPass enables mobile devices to perform payment transactions at merchant locations with PayPass-enabled point-of-sale terminals.

Global annual mobile phone payments are expected to grow more than tenfold between 2008 and 2013, according to the Juniper 2008 Mobile Payments Study. The MasterCard Over-the-Air Provisioning Service will allow issuers to move more aggressively into the mobile payments space and capture a share of this transaction volume more quickly and with reduced up front investment.

Citibank has launched a pilot of a new mobile person-to-person money transfer service with Obopay, for new and existing Citibank customers. Beginning on October 14, 2008, the Citi Obopay mobile payment service will be offered to all Citibank customers in the U.S., with a focus on Boston, Chicago, Maryland, Philadelphia, and New Jersey

VIsa and Nokia are planning  to deliver Visa payment and payment-related services - including contactless payments, remote payments, money transfer, alerts and notifications - for Nokia's next generation handsets

The first Visa-enabled phone with the Nokia 6212 classic, expected to be available starting October 2008.

Visa Inc is planning to make mobile payment-related services broadly available to United States consumers by the end of the year and support applications for the Android platform, which will be available for download on Android-powered handsets and initially available to Chase Visa cardholders.

The first set of services that Visa is planning to develop for Android will allow Chase Visa cardholders to receive notifications to their mobile devices about transaction activity on their accounts; obtain offers'; and use the built-in location-based technology developed by Google to map nearby merchants where they can redeem Visa offers and locate ATMs that accept Visa.

Cellpoint Mobile added new features available through mPoint, mobile payment system aimed at enterprises who wish to launch a full spectrum of mobile payment services.

Cellpoint Mobile's mPoint system contains a range of mobile payment options, all integrated into the overall structure of the Mobile Enterprise Framework (MEF), the company's architectural framework that enables enterprises to mobilize existing backend systems, including legacy business applications. The MEF enables mPoint to interact with financial, billing and credit card clearing systems.

 AT&T, Inc. reported  it is the first carrier to meet the PCI standards for financial transactions.

The network and security services portfolio -- comprising Virtual Private Network (VPN), managed routers, remote access, and managed security services -- successfully evaluated by an independent third party against the Payment Card Industry's Data Security Standards. AT&T's is compliant with the applicable industry standards, enabling customers who use these AT&T services to meet their PCI standards obligations.

The PCI Data Security Standards were to maximize the protection of credit and debit card data being transferred over the Internet or stored on their networks. PCI members undergo regular audits to determine if they are compliant with these standards.

AT&T services have completed the audit process by an independent third party so that they can be listed among Visa's and MasterCard's PCI certified providers.

Millions of taxi passenger can use pay by and use GPS-based location and mapping, weather updates, national and New York City entertainment and city news available in NYC taxis thanks to a solution developed by Sprint  and VeriFone's U.S.-based taxi business, VeriFone Transportation Systems (VTS).

The collaboration has resulted in equipping 6,600 NYC taxis with a real-time integrated payment and information system, powered by Sprint Mobile Broadband and Sprint Data Link to ensure secure credit card transactions.

The system features a Passenger Information Monitor with a 10.4-inch touch screen that allows passengers to review the fare, add a tip and pay by swiping a credit card through a reader or using "tap and go" contactless payment. The system includes programming from several providers, including WABC-TV's local news, AccuWeather, Reuters Business News, People.com (the leading celebrity news site), Disney Broadway, Zagat Survey and PMbuzz.com (a leading source of information on NYC night life). It also features a GPS component that helps passengers quickly recover items accidentally left in cabs. Sprint and VTS plan to deliver a similar solution to taxis in Philadelphia, Chicago and Las Vegas.

MasterCardannounced an agreement with Obopay, Inc. to offer a fully-integrated on-demand person-to-person mobile payment service in the United States. The service, offered via MasterCard MoneySend, will give new and existing MasterCard issuing customers the ability to provide an innovative mobile payments service to their MasterCard cardholders on all credit, debit and prepaid MasterCard-branded products.

The Financial Services Technology Consortium (FSTC) announced an initiative to examine the various technology models supporting mobile payments today and to make recommendations on an approach that would facilitate an interoperable mobile payments infrastructure in the future.

More than 25 organizations from banking, wireless carriers and technology providers are participating to provide a broad view of the current environment and best practices. Other organizations are encouraged to join. The initiative is sponsored by The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and The Clearing House Payments Company L.L.C. as well as the American Bankers Association, BITS Financial Services Roundtable, NACHA—The Electronic Payments Association, and PaymentsNation. The FSTC has engaged KPMG to provide project management.