payment

Verizon, American Express partner on mobile payments

Verizon Wireless and American Express said today that they're partnering to let customers order goods through their phone by typing in their phone number.

During the coming months, Verizon will start integrating American Express' Serve, a digital payment and commerce platform, into its phones and tablets. Unlike other initiatives, designed to let consumers pay by tapping their phone to a payment device at a store, Serve will let buyers make online purchases while on the phone.

It's just the latest step toward enabling phones to make payments, a white-hot field that's attracted a wide-ranging assortment of players … Read more

PayPal exec: It won't be easy to compete with us

Companies hopping into the payments business--with particular focus on mobile--will face unexpected challenges as PayPal did in its early days, according to an executive for the digital payments service provider.

"Being in the payments business is harder than saying you're in the payments business," Sam Shrauger, vice president of global product and design for PayPal, said in an interview with CNET today.

While not naming any specific companies, his warning was clearly leveled at players such as Google, which recently unveiled its Google Wallet feature and plans to roll out a payment system in select cities later … Read more

Gartner: 141 million to use mobile payments in 2011

The number of consumers paying for items via their mobile devices will shoot past 141 million this year, says new data out today from Gartner.

That figure is a 38.2 percent increase over 2010, when mobile-payment users hit 102.1 million. The amount of money generated via mobile payments is expected to reach $86.1 billion this year, up almost 76 percent from the $48.9 million seen last year.

The surge in mobile payments will come despite the slow adoption of mobile-payment technologies.

The mobile, retail, and financial industries have been rushing to roll out near-field communication (NFC) … Read more

Google brings in-app payments to any Web app

Google has rolled out its in-app payment service for any Web developer.

The service was first announced in May at Google's I/O Conference. The feature allows developers to offer single-click payments from their applications. At launch, Google touted the platform's simple integration into a respective Web app, saying that it only required the addition of a single line of code.

When Google first announced in-app payments, the company said it would be made available only to Chrome Web Store developers. However, Google said yesterday that its in-app payment system is now "available for all Web application … Read more

This Day in Tech: Apple has best-ever quarter; Anonymous suspects arrested

Too busy to keep up with today's tech news? Here are some of the more interesting stories from CNET (and elsewhere) for Tuesday, July 19.

• Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt will support key Android partner HTC in its patent fight with Apple. Speaking at a Google mobile conference in Tokyo today, Schmidt didn't specify exactly how Google plans on supporting HTC but said "we will make sure they don't lose."

• Apple, for its part, isn't losing any steam on the earnings front. The company this afternoon reported a profit of $7.31 billion, or $… Read more

Mobile-payments JV strikes more credit card deals

ISIS, the joint venture between three of the national wireless carriers designed to spur the development of a wide-reaching mobile-payment system, said today it had formed a partnership with Visa, MasterCard, and American Express.

In addition to an existing relationship with Discover, ISIS is the first to strike a deal with all four major credit card issuers. That marks a significant milestone for the venture, which has been slower to deploy its mobile-payment system.

"By working with the nation's payment networks--Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express--we significantly advance the vision of an open and secure platform that provides … Read more

Sprint, American Express partner on mobile wallet

Sprint Nextel said today it will support American Express' mobile-wallet application as the carrier continues to put its stamp on the mobile-payments world.

Sprint said today that its Android phones would be the first to use American Express' Serve mobile-payment application, unveiled in March. People can use the app to transfer funds between Serve accounts, make purchases at participating merchants, and pay their Sprint bill. In the future, the app will allow consumers to redeem offers on goods and services.

It marks the second major mobile-payment deal for the carrier, which also played a role in the debut of Google … Read more

Blaze Mobile awarded patent for NFC sticker

Blaze Mobile said today it had been awarded a patent for its mobile wallet and a sticker that lets consumers to wave their phones in front of a checkout reader to pay for goods.

Blaze was one of the early proponents of mobile payments, which has taken hold thanks to a strong push by the likes of Google, credit card issuers, handset manufacturers, and carriers. Blaze was also one of the first to embrace near-field communications technology, which enables tap-and-pay capability.

Blaze has sold an NFC sticker that would attach to the back of the phone and work in conjunction … Read more

PayPal shows off mobile tap-to-pay

PayPal on Wednesday showed off the ability to transfer money and pay by tapping two phones together as it looks to secure its role in the burgeoning mobile-payments area.

PayPal's senior director of mobile operations, Laura Chambers, demonstrated the tap-and-pay move at the MobileBeat conference in San Francisco by placing together two Nexus S smartphones (see video below). The phones are equipped with a near-field communications, or NFC chip, which allows for a quick transmission of information--in this case data about the amount of money transferred. The transfer happens through a special PayPal widget.

The demonstration shows PayPal is … Read more