Mobile Commerce

Square Inc. has been the mobile-payments darling of Silicon Valley because of its association with social-network superstar Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter. On Wednesday, however, the San Francisco-based startup gained the ultimate stamp of approval from the payments establishment when it disclosed that Visa Inc., the world’s largest payment …

Could a little-noted provision in the Durbin Amendment strangle the nascent U.S. contactless-payments market in its crib? It’s a very real possibility, says a pair of researchers, and the consequences could deal a blow to the prospects for mobile payments that depend on a promising technology called near-field communication (NFC). …

Tyfone Inc. this week launched what appears to be the first solution from a third-party vendor that allows any consumer with a mobile device to enroll in, and then use, mobile banking directly from a handset. The new product, which also features integration with Tyfone’s near-field communication (NFC) platform for …

Think Computer Corp., the startup behind the FaceCash mobile-payments system, has launched a browser-based point-of-sale register in an effort ease FaceCash integration for merchants. “The register lets any small business turn a Web browser into a cash register,” says Aaron Greenspan, Think’s chief executive and president. The product, which has …

Displaying its newfound mobile-payments fervor for the second time in just over a fortnight, American Express Co. on Wednesday announced it was investing in a startup called Payfone Inc. and would integrate Payfone’s technology with its new Serve mobile-pay platform. Founded in 2008, New York City-based Payfone uses a consumer’s …

Secure Vault Payments will announce a mobile application next month for the U.S. market, a top executive with the online-payments service tells Digital Transactions News. The mobile application, which will work on Apple, Android, and BlackBerry smart-phone systems, will start with a pilot in the fall and be in commercial …

Local demographics and the availability of a mass-transit system that uses contactless technology for fare payment chiefly accounted for the decision by Isis, the joint venture formed late last year and led by major wireless carriers, to launch its first pilot next year in Salt Lake City, Utah,  Isis’s head …

Mobile payments may be a nascent business fraught with uncertainty, but Starbucks Coffee Co. seems to have found a key to success. Last week, the company revealed that more than 3 million transactions have taken place on its smart-phone-based prepaid payments system, which became available in all U.S. company-owned stores …

With much of the payments industry and Silicon Valley tech press in a speculative frenzy about what Google Inc., Apple Inc., and Facebook Inc. might or might not do regarding mobile payments, a new study has come along indicating that consumers are complacent, arguably extremely complacent, about protecting personal and …

A mobile-payments system from Google Inc. may strengthen the search giant’s hand in marketing but will pose little threat to established payments networks, according to experts contacted by Digital Transactions News. The Google venture, more news of which emerged this week, has surprised some observers because it includes MasterCard Inc. …