Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Despite tests and innumerable press releases, the number of payment transactions from cell phones barely registers. But payments from mobile devices are about to take off thanks to a convergence of factors on the demand and supply side, according to a new report from Yankee Group Research Inc. The “Dialing …
Read More »Bling Nation’s Community Payment Platform Goes Live in Colorado
Bling Nation Ltd., which late last year unveiled a private-label payment network intended for local transactions (Digital Transactions News, Nov. 19, 2008), this week announced it has signed up its first financial institution and has been processing transactions for it in Colorado. The State Bank, La Junta, went live on …
Read More »One to Many: Visa Gets a Single Connection to Multiple Carriers
Visa Inc. has a struck an agreement with NeuStar Inc., a key player in the wireless telecommunications industry, that could enable financial institutions to develop more payment services for mobile devices. Created in 1998, Sterling, Va.-based NeuStar plays a unique role in the phone business. It acts as a neutral …
Read More »Beyond Stickers: Contactless ‘Skins’ for Payments with Handsets
The trend toward using adhesive tags to give mobile phones contactless-payment capability is going one step farther?now at least one startup is marketing a small sheet of vinyl that wraps around the entire mobile device and contains a contactless chip-and-antenna inlay. Mobile Payment Skins LLC launched last week to offer …
Read More »MasterCard Launches Mobile MoneySend for U.S. P2P Transactions
MasterCard Inc. on Wednesday announced its person-to-person payment service for mobile phones has launched in the U.S. with one issuer on board and an untold number waiting in the wings. The card network's Mobile MasterCard MoneySend service, which has been in the works for at least a year (Digital Transactions …
Read More »Boku Debuts to Exploit Markets in Social Networks And Games
Micropayments may have failed in previous attempts, but the idea of processing tiny transactions is enjoying new life in mobile payments. The latest example lies in the announcements made on Tuesday by Boku Inc. that it has acquired two rivals and is launching its worldwide service to allow handset users …
Read More »Carrier-Based Mobile P2P Gets Under Way in Canada
A new service debuted on Monday in Canada for which there is no equivalent in the U.S.: a single mobile person-to-person payments offering from the nation's three major wireless telecommunications companies. The service, called Zoompass, also is linked to a prepaid MasterCard PayPass contactless card that gives it utility at …
Read More »Amid Recession, PIN Debit Growth Far Outpaces Signature
While the recession is making an impact on consumer spending generally, PIN debit card usage is faring considerably better than that of signature debit. Indeed, PIN debit transactions by consumers grew 15% between July and December, the period during which the economic downturn began making itself felt, nearly four times …
Read More »Pressure for Mobile Banking Spurs Faster Deployment Technology
In an indication of how fast mobile banking is developing as a mainstream product for financial institutions, Fiserv Inc. this week released a version of its Mobile Money software that could let banks deploy a mobile-banking service in three months or less. The new version, called Mobile Money FastTrack, is …
Read More »New Research Shows Optimism About Mobile Banking And Payments
Spurred by the increasing popularity of smart phones and a strong push by financial institutions, the number of Americans actively using mobile-banking services could grow to 53.1 million by 2013, an increase of 431% from an estimated 10 million today. That's the prediction from research firm TowerGroup Inc., which this …
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