payments

U.K. wireless operators partner on mobile commerce

Three of the top wireless providers in the U.K. are joining forces to speed up the deployment of mobile payments that will allow shoppers to pay for things with their cell phones, according to Reuters.

Thursday the news service reported that Everything Everywhere, the joint venture between Orange and T-Mobile, Vodafone and Telefonica's O2 have agreed to create a mobile commerce system that would bring together retailers, banks and advertisers.

For years, there's been talk that consumers would be able to use their phones to buy things using a technology called Near Field Communications, which allows very … Read more

Verizon finds new partner for mobile payments

Verizon is working on a mobile payments service for smartphones, tablets, and PCs with mobile payments start-up Payfone.

The two companies made the announcement today, but did not reveal many details about how the service would work or a target date for when it will be ready for customers.

According to the release, Verizon customers will be able to make "online purchases" from a phone, tablet, or PC and send the charges to their monthly Verizon bill, or "traditional payment methods through financial partners," which implies credit cards.

Payfone's system will handle the routing, pre-authorization, … Read more

Visa acquires Fundamo mobile payment service

Visa is continuing to gain ground in the mobile payments market with the acquisition of Fundamo, a service that is already prevalent in at least 40 developing markets.

Basically, the merger brings together Fundamo's mobile financial services platform, for customers with little to no access to a bank account, with Visa's global payments network, VisaNet. The gain for Fundamo users would be a higher level of security when making mobile payments, and Visa gets a bigger consumer base abroad.

Additionally, Visa reaffirmed an agreement with Monitise, which offers new services (i.e. mobile payments, person-to-person payments, mobile transaction … Read more

NFC mobile payments could hit $50 billion by 2014

Consumers around the world could generate as much as $50 billion in sales through NFC-based mobile payments by 2014, according to a report released yesterday by Juniper Research.

NFC, or near-field communication, lets consumers pay for goods and services on the go through their mobile phones simply by touching or passing them over another NFC-equipped device such as a register or terminal. The funds themselves are transferred from the user's credit card account stored through the mobile phone.

A variety of industry players have kicked off their own efforts to tap into the potential of NFC.

Google recently announced … Read more

How your social network can protect your credit card

The payment service WePay launched a new online ticket store this week that competes in some ways with EventBrite. It's a logical addition to the growing service. But that's not what's interesting about WePay.

I'm seeing payment services companies like this popping up a bit more than I would have expected, given the serious regulatory and security issues involved in handling money in bulk (see Dwolla and Venmo). Talking about that with WePay founder Rich Aberman led to a fascinating discussion about how the company hopes to keep its fraud rate low enough to stay in … Read more

PayPal lawsuit alleges Google stole trade secrets

PayPal filed a lawsuit against Google today, alleging the Web giant misappropriated trade secrets from its mobile-payment business when it hired away a key executive in PayPal's mobile payments effort.

The lawsuit (PDF), which was filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court in California, alleges that Osama Bedier, a former senior PayPal executive working on the company's mobile-payments platform, misappropriated PayPal's trade secrets when he went to work for Google earlier this year.

Bedier "is now leading Google's efforts to bring point of sale technologies and services to retailers on its behalf," according to … Read more

Google unveils mobile payments, coupon service

Google today introduced Google Wallet and Google Offers at an event in New York City.

The company says it plans to bring all parts of the retail experience together to make "tomorrow's best shopping experience," said Google Vice President of Commerce for Stephanie Tilenius.

The services will combine coupons and discounts and payments at the time people buy things through their phone.

Together the services will work like this: Coupons for items you buy regularly will pop up on your phone, or an item that the store you're shopping at is out of will pop up … Read more

Mobile payments: Can Google put all the pieces together?

At a press conference scheduled for today in New York City, Google is expected to lay out the beginning of something mobile-technology experts have been foretelling for years: using mobile phones to pay for almost everything via near-field communications chips, or NFC.

NFC is a chip technology that, when placed in two different devices, lets small amounts of data be sent over very short distances between them. This can include data such as credit card information, train ticket info, and a coupon bar code.

We already have credit cards with NFC chips inside, and some figure moving away from credit cards to paying with a phone is the next step. Rumors have swirled that Apple has been hatching a plan to turn the iPhone into a mobile credit card via iTunes for over a year. Amazon.com is reported to be considering such a service, as have some credit card and wireless companies.

But talking about NFC and actually making a usable service for consumers happen with phones are two different things. Different companies in different industries need to work closely together for it to work in a straightforward manner for mobile phone users. That includes phone makers, mobile software companies, wireless service providers, banks, retailers, and makers of payment terminals.

That challenge -- as much of a management issue as it is a technological issue -- helps explain why no one has done it on a wide scale yet.

Google is perhaps best-positioned right now for instituting a mobile-payments system for several reasons: First, Google already makes one of the two phones in the world with NFC chips inside, the Nexus S (Nokia makes the other, the C7) and is likely to make more. Second, Google also has its own software, Android, which it can configure to the advantage of NFC chips in a phone. Thanks to Android, Google enjoys relationships with carriers too. Reports indicate it's planning to launch the NFC service for "select" phones on Sprint.

Retailers are a different story. They need to be able to accept a… Read more

This Day in Tech: Twitter acquires TweetDeck, Google to offer mobile payments?

Too busy to keep up with the tech news? Here are some of the more interesting stories from CNET for Wednesday, May 25.

Twitter acquires popular client TweetDeck Twitter says it will use the desktop service to help commercial users track conversations across the social network, in a deal reportedly valued at about $40 million. More

Piper Jaffray: Now's a good time to own Apple stock A new analyst report says that despite Apple's "lagged" stock gains this year, now is a good time to pick up shares based on the company's estimated growth over … Read more

Square vies with NFC for mobile payments

Start-up Square is looking to offer consumers and retailers its own unique mobile payments system through revamped versions of its iPhone/iPad app and its Android app.

Set up as a potential alternative to the much-touted but still emerging near-field communication (NFC) technology, Square's system would still let you pay for goods and services using your mobile phone without the need for cash or a credit card. But instead of having you tap your phone against an NFC-enabled register or terminal, Square's system would let "check into" a store through your phone, pick up your items, … Read more