July 8, 2013 PrivatBank, a Ukraine-based financial institution, has launched a contactless mobile POS offering that enables small businesses to accept card payments by scanning the card using a smartphone and its iPay application. The mPOS service is available to corporate and private customers in Ukraine and Russia, according to PrivatBank, which says it is […]
July 2, 2013 London-based Prepaid Financial Services (PFS) today announced a new mobile app for its PFS Prepaid MasterCard customers enabling users to store and manage their prepaid cards through a mobile digital wallet controlled through a smartphone. The Pocket to Pocket mobile app is initially available for the Apple iOS platform; an Android version […]
July 1, 2013 Motorists in Germany soon will be able to use Visa payWave technology to make contactless payments when filling up their tanks at Shell petrol stations. Beginning in spring 2014, Shell stations in the country will accept payments via contactless Visa card or NFC-enabled smartphone. Full rollout to all 2,200 German Shell locations […]
July 1, 2013 Square Inc. is shutting down its digital gift card operation after little more than six months, due to operational difficulties, according to Reuters. Square announced its gift card program in December 2012, touting it as a way for small businesses that lacked a gift card program to instantly enable users to send […]
Mobile wallets get a considerable amount of media attention, but will any of them really drive users to leave the plastic card era behind? I recently did a comparison test of Square Wallet, Lemon and Starbucks’ own mobile app. While all the payment types I used worked surprisingly well, none of them was an experience that elevated shopping into the futuristic world these apps conjure up among payments enthusiasts.
June 27, 2013 Ontario’s Ministry of the Attorney General is accepting comments through July 19 on the possible inclusion of prepaid products into the province’s pending escheat law, and one trade group is hoping to organize a unified payments industry response. Earlier this week, Payments eXchange Canada released a notice calling for prepaid stakeholders to […]
June 27, 2013 Lloyds Bank is entering the mobile POS market via a new deal with Monitise plc under which the U.K. bank will sell Monitise’s card acceptance technology to small businesses and micro-merchants. The companies will begin offering “a suite of mobile payments products” beginning this fall, with Monitise’s technology also serving as the […]
The impact of the internet on the banking industry may yet turn out to be far more important than the financial crisis and the subsequent regulatory overhaul. Viewing statements on-line and making payments electronically is just the very beginning of the revolution.
June 26, 2013 MasterCard Worldwide, looking to extend its MasterPass e-commerce checkout service to merchants on a mass basis, today announced a partnership with online retail services provider Web.com Group Inc., making MasterPass immediately available to tens of thousands of small-business merchants. Web.com, which has about 3 million small-business customers, now bundles MasterPass e-commerce checkout […]
June 26, 2013 Square Inc. hopes to give a boost to micro-merchants that have traditionally sold items face to face as they move into e-commerce through its new Square Market, which the San Francisco company unveiled this week. Targeting local merchants selling items online for the first time, Square Market provides an easy path for […]
June 25, 2013 Green Dot Corp. is taking the “name your price” feature to financial services as it rolls out its GoBank mobile banking solution nationwide today. Since its January unveiling, GoBank has been in beta testing with a group of invited consumers. Now anyone can sign up for the service at GoBank.com or by […]
Will Egypt be next to ignite an m-payments program for millions of unbanked consumers, similar to M-Pesa’s success in Kenya?
June 25, 2013 Barclays is taking contactless payment in a new direction with a service enabling users to make payments directly from their bank accounts by tapping their phones on QR codes on billboards, magazine ads and other printed items, potentially including routine bill payments. Harnessing the Barclays Pingit mobile payments app, the new Buyit […]
Speakers at the Digital Services Conference hosted by Informa in London on Tuesday expressed frustration at the lack of progress made by mobile wallets in the UK and called for more innovative solutions to bypass the impasse.
Although the network EMV liability shift is about two years out, card manufacturers already are consulting with their U.S. issuing clients to help them make decisions now about how they will approach the transition to EMV. First and foremost is the decision on when to begin, then which cards in their portfolio should have priority. […]
By Bill Grabarek, Senior Editor Reading between the lines of announcements from Apple Inc. to anticipate the technology titan’s next moves not only keeps analysts busy and consumers guessing, it has spawned entire Websites devoted to scrutinizing everything the company says and does. This isn’t to imply Apple doesn’t excel at effective self-promotion, but the company […]
The in-market mobile wallet or mobile application that (1) provides end users with value-added features and/or enhances payment capabilities, user decision-making or loyalty, and (2) provides retailers with a strong value proposition. Best in Category: O2 Wallet Open to customers of any bank or MNO who want to shop, send money, compare prices and receive […]
June 18, 2013 Far EasTone Telecommunications Co., one of Taiwan’s largest telcos, is launching a mobile payments pilot in cooperation with Far Eastern International Bank and MasterCard. The program, scheduled to begin during the second half of 2013, will use near field communication (NFC) technology and be limited to mobile payments under NT$3,000 (US$100.37), according […]
Innotribe, the Swift-backed initiative to enable collaborative innovation in financial services, has announced the names of the five contenders from the US leg of its annual Startup Challenge to compete at Sibos 2013 in Dubai in September.
If you believe that Apple will support near field communications (NFC) on its next iPhone, it’s time to give up on that hope.
MoneyGram has forged a deal with European mobile telecom operator Lebara Mobile.
Strong customer authentication and account monitoring are keys to preventing tax refund/benefits fraud on prepaid cards. By Loraine DeBonis, Editor-in-Chief As identity theft increases in the digital age, fraud perpetrated with stolen identities has risen dramatically. And, tax refunds have become a target for fraudsters. Tax-related identity theft jumped more than 650 percent between 2008 and […]
Just days before Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference, which runs all this week in San Francisco, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted Apple another patent that could be a signal of what the tech giant is planning for mobile payments. The patent relates to a “method and system for managing credits […]
The extent to which a targeted series of acquisitions over the past few years have moved Temenos from being simply a core banking system vendor to a fully-fledged financial technology specialist became clear at its recent annual user event, this year held in Abu Dhabi.
The organization that stood out from the crowd in 2012 to make a positive, game-changing difference in the prepaid/emerging payments environment in a geographic region or globally. Best in Category: Rêv Worldwide Launched low-cost mobile card reader targeting 400 million SMEs in 12 countries, along with Brazil’s first GPR card and Mexico’s first mobile banking/prepaid […]
E-commerce is still PayPal’s bread and butter, but the company is making serious strides at brick-and-mortar stores.
In business more than 60 years, Minneapolis firm demonstrates the wisdom of smart growth and leveraging core competency to become a leader in innovative card printing.
Innovation in financial services is currently at a seven-year low, reflecting a period of cost-cutting and scaling back in the face of new financial regulation – but innovative new technologies such as mobile may provide a solution, according to law firm RPC.
An Interview with John Walsh, CEO, SightSpan Serving on a corporate board is a great honor and a great responsibility, especially for those involved in financial services organizations. Gone are the days when directors were management’s rubberstamp. And particularly since the global financial crisis of 2008, significantly more is expected of non-management corporate directors. Today’s […]
Heartland School Solutions, a division of Princeton, N.J.-based payments processor Heartland Payment Systems, has unveiled a new mobile app that enables parents of school-aged children to manage their kids’ lunch expenses via smartphone or tablet.
As competition heats up in the mobile merchant acceptance arena, payleven hopes to improve its odds of gaining international market share with a deal to sell its chip-and-PIN readers in Apple Inc. stores across Europe plus a new strategic alliance it’s formed with Germany-based Wirecard AG.
May 30, 2013 Spain-based telecom giant Telefónica has joined with Spanish financial services providers CaixaBank and Santander to form a new company to develop “business opportunities based on the latest mobile and communication technologies.” According to the involved companies, the alliance is Europe’s first full joint venture between financial institutions and telecom operators for the […]
May 30, 2013 Banks and other financial institutions looking to enter into the mobile wallet arena are likely to find a market rife with competition, mostly in the form of own-branded products that deliver proprietary services only. That was among the findings in a new white paper by Mobey Forum’s Business Workgroup, the fourth in […]
The idea of sending money via email is not entirely new. This month, however, a new financial player entered this arena: Google announced that it will integrate Google Wallet into Gmail.
May 23, 2013 Sprint’s Boost Mobile is taking a page out of O2’s playbook in the U.K.—launching a mobile wallet for online transactions with a companion prepaid Visa card for use at brick-and-mortar locations. One of the first telcos in the U.S. to launch its own wallet—AT&T Mobility, Verizon and T-Mobile have joined together on […]
Mobile payments platform Square has ventured into its first market outside North America, becoming publicly available in Japan, the company announced today. “I am honored to introduce Square to a country with a rich history of design, innovation and tradition. Square shares the same values and attention to detail in our products,” said Jack Dorsey, […]
May 23, 2013 GiftCards.com, a subsidiary of Pittsburgh-based Wolfe LLC, is deepening its digital offerings with the acquisition this week of Giftly, a mobile app-based digital gift card service. Giftly, a San Francisco-based startup launched in 2011, enables consumers to purchase digital gift cards that may be designated for specific purchases at any U.S. merchant […]
