Mobile Commerce

Bitpass Inc., a 2-year-old processor of micropayments on the Internet, has rolled out a new service allowing individuals and small businesses to sell music, photos, or other digital content without creating an e-commerce site. Palo Alto, Calif.-based Bitpass says it will host the content for sellers and handle payments, “from …

America Online Inc. will begin offering packages of premium content on its Internet service through new software from Valista Ltd., an Ireland-based payment software company, the companies announced today. The new solution allows AOL to target and price particular packages, or bundles, to particular audiences, with special promotional pricing and …

Moneris Solutions, a major acquiring processor in North America, has become the first processor to agree to adopt Peppercoin Inc.'s latest micropayments system. Under an agreement reached this week, Peppercoin will serve as a gateway for transactions performed at both brick-and-mortar and online U.S. merchant locations and sites served by …

The market for wireless point-of-sale credit and debit card transactions is about to heat up. Founded in 2002, Boston-based Way Systems Inc. is introducing a point-to-point processing system that includes mobile phones equipped with card swipes, security and transaction programming, and keypads for personal identification numbers. The swipe, keypad, and …

As transaction processors add services to their basic product, they put increasing pressure on gateway providers to differentiate themselves. One of the most ambitious strategies for differentiation is being pursued by Authorize.net Inc., acquired this spring for $82 million by Lightbridge Inc., a Burlington, Mass.-based provider of billing and fraud-management …

A Boston-based mobile-transaction processor that has signed up a local taxicab company and a number of other merchants is hoping this week's Democratic National Convention will help propel the fledgling service into national prominence. Vayusa Inc., which offers the cell-phone-based service under the name MobileLime, has recruited 50 merchant locations …

The number of people buying goods online at prices below $2 has grown to some 10 million, up from 4 million nine months ago, according to a survey on micropayments whose results were released today. In the same nine months, the proportion of online buyers who bought content from more …

After emerging in the 1990s as specialists in the business of connecting Internet merchants to acquirers and merchant processors, gateway processors are now wrestling with aggressive competition that will retard their growth relative to other e-commerce players, predicts a recent research report on online commerce. Gateways like CyberSource Corp., Authorize.Net …

Falling technology costs and the increasing availability of more sophisticated cellular networks are driving a growing trend toward wireless point-of-sale devices, according to research from TowerGroup, a consulting and research firm in Needham, Mass. The firm's research indicates that while mobile terminals are still a small fraction of the installed …

Brother International Corp., Bridgewater, N.J., a maker of office equipment such as computer printers and fax machines, has announced it is marketing a wireless device for use by mobile merchants and salespeople looking to be able to process credit card transactions in the field. The device, a Samsung SPH-i700 Pocket …