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As with other recent moves toward contactless payments via mobile phones, Google Inc.’s introduction of a smart phone equipped with near-field communication (NFC) technology comes shrouded with question marks, say mobile-payments players. Google’s move, which it announced on Monday in conjunction with the rollout of a new, NFC-supporting version of …
Read More »Discover Starts to Roll out Its Zip Contactless Payment System
After an extended testing period, Discover Financial Services is rolling out its Discover Zip contactless payment system. The card network says an undisclosed number of cardholders began receiving contactless cards in the mail Nov. 15, while others received contactless stickers that attach to their mobile phones or other items. More …
Read More »Merchant Group Calls for Bold Action on Mobile Payments with EMV
A trade group representing more than 50 major U.S. merchants released a position paper on Monday calling on the payments industry to move resolutely toward mobile payments with near-field communication (NFC) capability and chip-and-PIN technology. The Merchant Advisory Group, based in Dallas, sent the five-page paper to card networks, major …
Read More »2011 Is Looking Like a Breakthrough Year for Mobile Capture
Next year is likely to be a breakthrough year for a technology that lets consumers deposit checks using a camera-equipped mobile phone, according to a research report released this week. While mobile remote deposit capture (RDC) has been confined to a handful of pilots and has had its share of …
Read More »Apps Give Smart Phones Wide Influence over Consumer Spending
Often overlooked as the trend toward mobile payments picks up steam is the extent to which mobile phones, and especially smart phones, influence transactions even if they aren’t used to consummate them. The most recent example of this notion is a finding by IDC Retail Insights that 28% of consumers’ …
Read More »How Acquirers Can Leverage New High-Tech Marketing Tools
Banks that have both issuing and merchant-acquiring operations might generate more charge volume and make more money if they started taking advantage of new opportunities presented by online group-couponing companies, merchant-funded rewards programs, and mobile-phone-based marketers to help their merchant clients increase sales, Aite Group LLC says in a new …
Read More »Observers Express Caution About the Carriers’ New NFC Venture
Forty-eight hours after the announcement by a trio of major wireless carriers that they plan to launch a point-of-sale mobile payments system, reaction from expert observers and others in the industry tends toward caution about the immediate prospects for Isis, the carriers’ joint venture. Isis is expected to launch some …
Read More »Once ‘Bearish,’ a Payments Researcher Smiles on Mobile Payments
The rapid development of mobile payments in the U.S. is starting to make believers out of skeptics. Boston-based Aite Group LLC, a payments consulting and research firm, had been one of those skeptics, but it released a report on Wednesday predicting U.S. mobile payments of all kinds will total $214 …
Read More »Mitek Books a Profit As Mobile Demand Perks up
Mobile remote deposit capture software provider Mitek Systems Inc. posted a profitable last quarter of fiscal 2010 as more resellers and financial institutions adopted its products for taking pictures of checks from smart phones. And while San Diego-based Mitek has big expectations for its flagship Mobile Deposit application, the company …
Read More »Wireless Carriers Unveil Isis, Their Mobile Payments Joint Venture
In a move the payments industry had expected since early August, the nation’s largest wireless carriers on Tuesday announced they had formed a joint venture to run a point-of-sale mobile-payments network. The new company, known as Isis, will be headed by Michael Abbott, formerly an executive with GE Capital’s proprietary …
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