Mobile


Interac Demos Canada’s First NFC Debit Transaction at Toronto McDonald’s (March 28, 2013)

Canada’s national ATM and debit network Interac this week announced the completion of the nation’s first NFC mobile debit transaction in a demonstration at a Toronto McDonald’s restaurant. The transaction showcasing the contactless EMV Interact Flash technology was conducted with an NFC-ready BlackBerry smartphone linked to a RBC Royal Bank customer’s bank account through mobile […]

2013 Paybefore Awards: Best General Purpose Reloadable Card Program-U.S. Solutions

Best use of a consumer-funded reloadable network branded prepaid card for general use, such as ATM access and purchasing. Includes travel, remittance and youth-focused (including campus and student) programs; excludes payroll programs. For Paybefore’s purposes, card may mean a physical card or alternate form factor, including a virtual card. Best in Category: PayPal Prepaid MasterCard  […]

M-Payments’ Next Chapter: Get Ready for ‘Wallet Wars’ (March 2013)

By Kate Fitzgerald, Emerging Payments Editor  The proliferation of mobile wallet concepts enabling consumers to make payments with smartphones and tablets already may seem daunting, but get ready for more. Experts say it’s still quite early in the cycle as card-based payments morph into new, mobile forms with countless approaches to enriching the shopping process […]

Viewpoint: Early Days for NFC (March 2013)

By Lori Breitzke, E&S Consulting LLC In the initial installment of this article, we addressed how trends in EMV will impact the prepaid sector. But developments in near field communication (NFC) merit an equally close watch, as they, too, should have bearing on the prepaid market and how it plays out moving forward. Let’s start […]

Viewpoint: Early Days for NFC (March 2013)

By Lori Breitzke, E&S Consulting LLC In the initial installment of this article, we addressed how trends in EMV will impact the prepaid sector. But developments in near field communication (NFC) merit an equally close watch, as they, too, should have bearing on the prepaid market and how it plays out moving forward. Let’s start […]

Banco Sabadell Launches NFC Pilot with Visa (March 26, 2013)

Spain’s Banco Sabadell, operating under various local bank brands from its headquarters in the city of Sabadell, has launched an NFC payments pilot with mobile network operator Telefónica and BlackBerry. Participating customers will receive an NFC-enabled BlackBerry Curve smartphone with their Visa payment card details stored in the handset, the bank said. Customers may download […]

Resistant to digital banking? Consumers have never demanded it more.

In today’s multi-channel age, banks cannot afford to focus all their efforts on a single digital strategy any more than solely on the branch experience – the winners will be those that can see beyond channel-specific efforts and provide a truly integrated offering.

TransCard Expands Product Line with Student Prepaid Card (March 25, 2013)

The growing student card market has a new entrant. Chattanooga, Tenn.-based processor and program manager TransCard is targeting banks that want to offer prepaid cards to college students with its newest reloadable prepaid product. The company’s announcement of its Student Prepaid Card comes just weeks after unveiling a prepaid card for banks to offer customers […]

Cease & Desist: Ill. Gets Tough with Square and ‘Unlicensed Money Transmitters’ (March 2013)

The Illinois Department of Financial & Professional Regulation recently released five cease and desist orders from January 2013 against six entities for unlicensed activities under the state’s Transmitters of Money Act. These six entities offer a variety of services in Illinois, including domestic and international money transfer, bill payment services and prepaid cards.  One of […]

Billtrust Offers Integrated QR Codes for Mobile Billing (March 19, 2013)

March 19, 2013 Billtrust today has launched QR codes for biller statements, a service enabling consumers and businesses to pay their bills online by scanning the QR code with their smartphones. The Hamilton, N.J.-based provider of outsourced billing services can imprint a QR code on any outbound billing document, according to the company. When the […]

Paybefore Honors Innovation in Orlando, Announces Europe Winners

Read about our winners and view event photos. The Paybefore Awards Europe ceremony will be held during Prepaid Expo Europe on 18 April in London. Best-in-Category honorees will be announced for the first time. On March 4, Paybefore celebrated 72 programs in 23 categories, naming for the first time Best-in-Category honorees at the 7th Annual Paybefore Awards […]

Mobile apps will boost wealth management sector

An analysis of mobile solutions for financial advisors concludes that applications to support client interaction and advisory services “will become one of the most industry-disruptive, but potentially most rewarding” developments in the wealth management sector. This is the main finding of Mobile Apps for Financial Advisors and Wealth Managers by Swiss research company MyPrivateBanking Research. […]

PayPal Buys Mobile App Firm, Adds iPad Merchant App (March 14, 2013)

March 14, 2013 PayPal Inc. is preparing to rev up its digital wallet with the acquisition of Duff Research, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based mobile app development shop, the company announced this week on its blog. PayPal since last year has been putting a heavy emphasis on mobile in all of its new product developments, wrote James […]

Polish Bank Debuts Mobile Payments Service (March 14, 2013)

March 14, 2013 PKO Bank Polski has launched a new mobile payment service for use at POS, online, ATMs and for P2P money transfer. The system, known as IKO, is available as a free app for Android and iOS-based smartphones and will soon expand to BlackBerry, Symbian, Java and Windows Phone, according to the Polish […]

Connecting to Consumers: Keys from Payments Innovators (March 2013)

March 2013   By Kate Fitzgerald, Emerging Payments Editor In the mobile landscape, the race to build close ties to consumers is intensifying as a broad range of players vie to become essential to individuals’ shopping, purchasing and daily financial management habits. Though still early in the game, at the Prepaid Expo USA in Orlando, Fla., […]

Paybefore Honors Innovation in Orlando (March 2013)

March 2013   Expanding the Boundaries of PrepaidLeft to right: Lisa Breitengross and Kevin Boglarsky, Discover On March 4, Paybefore celebrated 72 programs in 23 categories, naming for the first time Best-in-Category honorees at the 7th Annual Paybefore Awards Ceremony, which capped off the first day of Prepaid Expo USA in Orlando, Fla. This year—for […]

Mobile bill payments to grow rapidly and migrate to tablets

Almost 200 million mobile users will be making bill payments via their mobile by 2017, according to research. According to Juniper Research, there is a growing user acceptance of ‘push’ mobile banking and a sharp rise in tablet adoption that will drive users of transactional tablet banking services. The report also finds that, adoption of […]

Blog: NFC Still Top Dog at GSMA Mobile World Congress (March 2013)

March 2013   By Sirpa Nordlund, Mobey Forum So, where were you in the last week of February? If, like me, you work in the mobile industry, there’s a fair chance you visited Barcelona for the GSMA Mobile World Congress. Over three days, 72,000 visitors from more than 200 countries and all corners of the mobile […]

USAA Bank enlists talking mobile banking app

US bank USAA Bank has adopted a mobile virtual assistant called Nina, developed by Nuance Communications, which lets customers interact with their bank account in novel ways that simulate a conversation with a real human.

Paybefore Honors Innovation in Orlando (March 4, 2013)

March 4, 2013 Paybefore celebrated 72 programs in 23 categories, naming for the first time Best-in-Category honorees at the 7th Annual Paybefore Awards Ceremony, which capped off the first day of Prepaid Expo USA in Orlando, Fla. This year—for the very first time—there was a sixth judge, consisting of the votes of visitors to Paybefore.com, […]

Paybefore Honors Innovation in Orlando (March 4, 2013)

March 2013   Expanding the Boundaries of PrepaidLeft to right: Lisa Breitengross and Kevin Boglarsky, Discover On March 4, Paybefore celebrated 72 programs in 23 categories, naming for the first time Best-in-Category honorees at the 7th Annual Paybefore Awards Ceremony, which capped off the first day of Prepaid Expo USA in Orlando, Fla. This year—for […]

Study reveals customer motives for switching banks

A majority of consumers would prefer portable bank account numbers to make switching between banks easier, according to a new YouGov poll conducted by BT – and the reasons may surprise advocates of Banking 2.0.

MasterCard Inks VimpelCom Deal, Launches NFC Services in Brazil (Feb. 28, 2013)

Feb. 28, 2013 MasterCard Worldwide pushed its global mobile payments strategy forward this week with announcements of diverse initiatives targeting new customers, including a strategic partnership with Amsterdam-based mobile network operator VimpelCom Ltd. to reach unbanked consumers in 18 countries with a “mobile money” service, as well as the card network’s first NFC launch in […]

PayPal Founder’s New App ‘Simplifies’ Mobile Shopping (Feb. 28, 2013)

Feb. 28, 2013 A new startup from PayPal co-founder Max Levchin is aiming to improve the process of making online purchases via mobile device—an improvement he says is a boon to customers and retailers alike. Known as Affirm, the new company is the brainchild of Levchin’s tech incubator Hard, Valuable, Fun and is launching a […]

Blog: New Credit Card Surcharges Could Impact Prepaid Market (February 2013)

Blog: New Credit Card Surcharges Could Impact Prepaid Market February 2013   By Lori Breitzke, E&S Consulting LLC A proposed settlement agreement in the In re Payment Card Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount Antitrust Litigation—filed in 2005 on behalf of approximately 7 million merchants alleging, among other claims, that MasterCard and Visa had separately colluded […]

Blog: New Credit Card Surcharges Could Impact Prepaid Market (February 2013)

February 2013   By Lori Breitzke, E&S Consulting LLC A proposed settlement agreement in the In re Payment Card Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount Antitrust Litigation—filed in 2005 on behalf of approximately 7 million merchants alleging, among other claims, that MasterCard and Visa had separately colluded with banks to eliminate competition and increase interchange (swipe) […]

Wincor Nixdorf predicts mobile cash withdrawal explosion

While most large banks in the UK offer a mobile app, some do not yet offer mobile cash withdrawal as a feature. That is likely to change soon, according to Ian Byrne, banking director UK and Ireland at ATM maker Wincor Nixdorf.

Wagner aims at m-commerce gap

Dan Wagner is pretty sure that he has an idea how the use of mobile devices will play out in the commercial world and how the relationships between banks, merchant acquirers, merchants and customers will change.

Saxo Bank revamps mobile trading app

Saxo Bank has added new features to its trading app SaxoTrader, which works on iPhone and iPad and is designed to make trading more mobile.

Visa Inks Deals with Samsung, Roam for ‘Ready Partner’ Program (Feb. 25, 2013)

Feb. 25, 2013 Aiming to speed up development of mobile payment technologies, Visa Inc. on the eve of this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona announced the Visa Ready Partner Program, a framework it hopes will make it easier for mobile device manufacturers, mobile network operators and various of their technology partners around the world […]

MasterCard Unveils MasterPass for ‘Simple’ Shopping Experience (Feb. 25, 2013)

Feb. 25, 2013 MasterCard Inc. today unveiled MasterPass, a cloud-based service that builds on its PayPass Wallet Services by eliminating the need for consumers to enter card or shipping details with each purchase and adding new tools to enhance online, mobile and in-store shopping. MasterPass will roll out through banks in Canada and Australia beginning […]

PayPal to Enter Crowded European Mobile Card Reader Market (Feb. 25, 2013)

Feb. 25, 2013 PayPal continues its diversification into brick-and-mortar payments with the announcement that it will expand its PayPal Here mobile card reader to Europe, beginning in the U.K. this summer. The European iteration of PayPal Here will differ from the version launched in the U.S. nearly a year ago in some key ways, due […]