Mobile phones have increasingly become tools that consumers use for banking, payments, budgeting, and shopping. Given the rapid pace of developments in the area of mobile finance, the Federal Reserve Board began conducting annual surveys of consumers’ use of mobile financial services in 2011. This 78-page report, “Consumers and Mobile Financial Services” (March, 2015) examines trends in the adoption and use of mobile banking, payments, and shopping behavior and how the emergence of mobile financial services affects consumers’ interaction with financial institutions.
Payment Methods for Chinese Social Networking Service (SNS) Games Exported to Southeast Asian Market
As Chinese game developers rush to explore the overseas market, game operation as well as in-game payment systems have become a hot topic for game developers.
Chinese game developers are running their games in the overseas markets in a number of ways: First, through massive global social networks, such as Facebook; other developers prefer to run the games on their own platforms, like Elex-tech; and still others distribute their games via local operators. Game developers who choose the last option are free from worrying about game operating and recharging systems as the agent takes care of that; but if they choose the first option, especially publishing games on Facebook, they need to operate the game on their own and choose their own payment methods.
Regardless of the new Facebook payment policies, there are three payment methods on Facebook:
- Facebook credit and PayPal that binds with users’ debit or credit cards;
- Local game recharging cards;
- Mobile billing
Facebook credit and PayPal is popular in European countries but rarely in Southeast Asia, as local users are not accusto med to using credit cards.
Compared with PayPal, the use of game recharging cards is more widespread. Game recharging cards such as MOL are popular in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, but rarely in Southeast Asia.
As for mobile billing, it is not restricted by sales outlets and it fits the users’ need of paying anytime and anywhere. People choose mobile billing mostly because of its lower risks and ease of use, so it is an important payment method. For some small game developers, it would be difficult for them to go directly to the operators, so a preferrable solution may be to select a mobile billing solution provider that can supply them with customized service, such as provided by B.Shark, Boku and Zong.
In conclusion, not one of the payment solutions is perfect; they are complementary with each other, and Social Networking Service (SNS) game developers should optimize their payment system in order to maximum their income.
Source: B.Shark
Cachet Financial Solutions Targets Mobile Check Cashing and Prepaid Cards Market
Cachet Financial Solutions, a provider of remote deposit capture (RDC) solutions will target the growing market for mobile check cashing and reloadable prepaid cards, which traditionally serve a large portion of the U.S. unbanked and under-banked population. Several financial service organizations will begin offering Cachet’s mobile check capture solution to their customers by the end of the third quarter of this year.
Previously, RDC technology was directed toward banks and credit unions. With Cachet’s proprietary technology, robust demand for mobile financial services, and changing customer preferences and demographics, the check cashing and prepaid card industries are can also participate in remote checking technologies.
Cachet currently offers a full suite of RDC solutions, including a front-end, mobile check loading application for the Android, Blackberry, iPhone smartphones and tablets. The application can be branded for check cashers, program managers and processors to allow their customers to be able to load checks on their prepaid debit cards. Cachet also offers a back-end product (CheckReview) that allows check cashers and load solution providers to review high-resolution images of the check’s front and back with full image quality analysis, CAR/LAR and Virtual MICR detection. Cachet has developed an API which allows the check cashers to import the information into their risk/fraud mitigation tools or central database for decision/guarantee purposes.
The foundation of Cachet’s mobile check capture application is convenience and simplicity for the consumer. Mobile check capture allows consumers to load checks onto their prepaid card using their camera-equipped smartphone or tablet. Users can load checks from anywhere at any time, allowing for quicker access to funds on their reloadable prepaid cards. Cachet’s mobile check capture is easy to use. Users simply click the branded application on their smartphone or tablet, endorse the check, agree to any applicable fees and snap photos of the front and back of each check that is being submitted.
“Cachet is one of the few RDC companies that understands the dynamics of this industry and has both a front-end and mobile solution and a back-end check imaging/verification solution for the various solution providers,” said Jeffrey Mack, President and CEO of Cachet Financial Solutions. “Our strategy is to create strategic partnerships with the program managers, processors, check cashers and guarantors/loaders. We believe there is a great opportunity in this space and we’re poised to take the lead in it.”
Cachet’s strategy comes at a perfect time as industry data shows more and more consumers are moving away from traditional banking relationships in favor of alternative financial services such as check cashers and reloadable prepaid cards. According to a 2009 FDIC National Survey, over 25% of U.S. households are under-banked or unbanked and that number appears to be rising as a result of the recent economic troubles. According to research by Mercator Advisory Group, Americans will put an estimated $70.7 billion on reloadable prepaid cards this year. That’s a 153% increase from the $28 billion loaded onto the cards in 2009.
“Our technology allows us to develop and execute a host of solutions for a variety of financial organizations – from check cashing companies to reloadable prepaid card issuers and processors,” said Mack. “Financial service providers have to develop new methods to retain and satisfy their customers, and mobile check capture is just another example of that initiative. We are proud of our work and will continue to innovate and develop new solutions on behalf of our customers.”
Hypercom Mobile Payments Terminal to be Marketed by Avant-Garde Marketing Solutions
Hypercom Corporation today announced that Avant-Garde Marketing Solutions, Inc., an independent sales organizations, is now marketing Hypercom’s Optimum M4230 multi-application mobile payment terminal and Mobile Network service to its thousands of merchant customers nationwide. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Avant-Garde will market the M4230 mobile terminal with Hypercom’s Mobile Network as an affordable bundled solution that increases businesses’ revenue by enabling them to extend their payment acceptance reach beyond fixed locations.
“The M4230 with Hypercom’s Mobile Network dramatically simplifies activating, conducting and managing wireless transactions, eliminates unnecessary gateway transaction fees, and is a reliable high-security solution that can be deployed anywhere,” said Michael Varian, Director, Avant-Garde Marketing Solutions, Inc. “Demand for mobile payments is clearly increasing as merchants themselves become more mobile. Hypercom’s Mobile Network service and terminal is a perfect package to address the increasing mobile needs of our customers.”
“Avant-Garde’s selection of Hypercom’s GPRS terminal plus network service package is an innovative, highly secure, cost effective and easy to use solution to support the soaring demand for mobile payment acceptance,” said David Cronin, President and Managing Director, North America, Hypercom Corporation. “Many ISOs, distributors and payment processors serving thousands of merchants nationwide have already chosen Hypercom’s mobile solution over all others. And demand continues to grow.”
Unlike competing solutions, Hypercom’s Mobile Network service features simple, usage-based billing with no roaming charges, no additional transaction fees, fast and simple browser-based SIM activation, and 24/7 technical support from a single, secure, reliable source.
Hypercom’s global GPRS network connects to more than 200 networks in over 90 countries.
Source: Business Wire
InterDigital Appreciates 50% With Apple-Google Rush for Patents
Patents are becoming so valuable that Apple Inc. and Google Inc. may have to pay a 50 percent premium to buy InterDigital Inc., even after a decision to put itself up for sale sparked a 72 percent jump in the stock.InterDigital, whose engineers invented some of the technology for high-speed mobile phone networks now used by the world’s biggest handset makers, has gained $1.4 billion since saying last week it hired banks to explore options including a sale.
via Bloomberg.
Jumio Turns Any Smartphone Cam or Webcam into a Credit Card Reader
Payment company Jumio today announced a new technology solution for businesses to increase security and ease of use for online and mobile credit card payments, the company says. Jumio’s Netswipe solution allows a webcam to be used as a secure credit card reader, enabling merchants to accept payments online.
“Jumio bridges the gap between the security and trust of credit card payments at the point of sale and the availability and convenience of modern day online transactions,” says Jumio founder and CEO Daniel Mattes. “Consumers love the ease-of-use and the smooth experience associated with completing a transaction. At a time when both consumers and businesses are looking for more efficient and safe ways to make credit card purchases, Netswipe promises to usher in a new era of disruption that makes online payments easier than ever before.”
Netswipe enables online card-present-transactions: Checking out just like at the point of sale (POS). To complete a transaction, consumers briefly hold their credit card in front of their webcam. Through secure videostreaming, the credit card details are recognized and verfied. No snapshot image is taken, no data is stored on the computer that is used for the payment.
Business owners can implement Jumio’s Netswipe service into their payment process to reduce fraud and increase sales due to a heightened user experience.
“During our pilot phase, we have conducted a customer survey with a focus group who have used Netswipe. Amongst other impressive numbers, the churn rate decreased significantly from 52% to 21%,” said Mattes.
With the launch, Jumio has introduced three products for merchants that simplify the online payment process: Netswipe Start, Netswipe Scanning and Netswipe Processing. Additional products including a mobile solution will be released later this year.
Jumio’s pre-launch negotiations attracted an impressive list of partners. Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, member of the Jumio board of directors, previously led a Series A funding round of US$ 6.5m and will oversee Jumio’s rollout into the Asian market. Additionally, Jumio’s advisory board includes former executives from Google, Amazon and NASA.
Says Saverin, “I am very excited to be involved with Jumio, which has developed a ground breaking technology that fulfills two of the most important aspects of payments processing: heightened security and a simplified user experience.”
Source: Jumio
How ISIS Consortium Screwed Itself Out of Mobile Payments Market
There has been a huge scrum amongst the smartphone players to capture the market for phone-based purchases. In a very surprising move, the major US-based carriers simply gave up. Isis, the mobile payment system sponsored by Verizon, AT&T and TMobile, announced that it had signed deals with Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover to its touch and go payment systems.
Why are US carriers not going after this incredibly lucrative market?
There’s actually a very simple reason. Payment providers require trust, and the US carriers decidedly do not have their customers’ trust.
Read more, via VentureBeat.
MNO’s Collaborate to Establish Hungarian Mobile Wallet Association
Hugary’s Magyar Telekom, Telenor and Vodafone have joined with three market leading operators–MasterCard, OTP Bank and SuperShop–to establish the Hungarian Mobile Wallet Association. The aim of the Association is to design and articulate recommendations for mobile NFC service standards in Hungary, and to submit proposals towards the successful implementation of the service.
Designed to operate over very short distances, Near Field Communication is a wireless switching technology, which facilitates contactless communication and exchange of data between two or even several devices over a secure channel.
The use of contactless bank cards (e.g. PayPass) through the mobile phone constitutes only one pillar of the service. Equally important are other features such as loyalty cards, coupons, travel and entrance tickets, etc. Services that are based on NFC technology are capable of ensuring new and highly attractive customer experiences through their speed, ease of use, innovative features and the possibilities provided by the large and interactive screen of the mobile phone.
This united move of Hungary’s MNOs may help establish Hungary among the first countries where mobile NFC services are launched in Europe.
Source: Hungarian Mobile Wallet Association
Daily Deals Get Mobile Payment Solution from Aggregator Monster Offers
Monster Offers, a mobile solutions company and Daily Deal aggregator, announced today its mobile payment strategy is well-positioned to meet the current needs of the Daily Deal industry. As Daily Deal providers converged at last week’s Deals 3D Conference in San Francisco, creating better mobile experiences and integrating mobile payment solutions prevailed as hot topics as the next phase of business development for the group buying industry.
Monster Offers’ ZalaPay mobile payment solution proved to resonate with Daily Deal providers as current payment methods lack tight integration with providers’ sites and distracts users from completing the purchase process, especially from mobile devices. The ZalaPay solution provides a truly integrated “in-app” purchase experience for the user, resulting in significant conversion of sales for the deal publisher.
According to Paul Gain, Monster Offers CEO, “Recent announcements for payment solutions from MasterCard, Google, American Express and Facebook all substantiate the power of our business model. We aim to provide an even greater value proposition to the user, deal provider, and merchant with our ZalaPay platform which provides an “in-app” purchase experience across all mobile platforms. When customers can purchase deals within the application, user conversion increases exponentially. With Monster Offers’ ZalaPay mobile payment solution, we are perfectly positioned to offer Daily Deal publishers a mobile payment solution that can increase sales and boost revenue.”
Monster Offers’ mobile financial services include “EZ-Click” Mobile Cashier, Pre-Paid Debit Cards, P2P Mobile Money, Redemption, and Daily Deal Wallet. The first of these integrated in-app mobile solutions is expected to be available later this summer.
Source: Business Wire
B.Shark Mobile Payment API Drives Up the China Phone Market
Just one month after launching the B.Shark mobile payment API, hundreds of mobile application developers and manufacturers have started the integration work, and shipped out the mobiles and have started generating income. Particularly the South East Asian market is showing a sharp increase at the beginning of July.
Most of the mobile manufactures integrated with B.Shark’s mobile payment API sell their mobiles to Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam in South-east Asia, to Brazil and Chile in South America, and to Nigeria and Ghana in Africa.
“It was very difficult for the mobile manufacturers to make any revenue on the pre-load mobile content before, because we do not have a connection with the operators and other service providers’ solutions cannot work on our mobile OS,” said a manager from the value added service department from one of the biggest manufacturers of China phones.
”Mobile users can now enjoy better and constant updated mobile content through GPRS networks, and with the B.Shark API, we can collect the revenue from the pre-loaded content, which would increase brand loyalty and the competitiveness of the manufacturers. With this kind of fierce competition in the industry, this extra income means a lot to us,” he added
The up-to-date data shows that hundreds of mobile manufactures have downloaded the B.Shark mobile payment API. With this API, they will be able to explore more areas in the overseas mobile market, and push the China phone market forward.
Source: B.Shark
MobilePayUSA Launches Virtual Terminal for Mobile Payments–Without NFC
TechCrunch Disrupt 2010 Startup Alley Winner MobilePayUSA announces that private beta-testing of the company’s non-NFC mobile payment solution has begun at the Tutti Frutti Frozen Yogurt in Balboa Island, California. Instead of waiting for NFC technology to become viable, Tutti Frutti is using the Virtual Terminal offered by MobilePayUSA for PC-based POS systems.
Unlike other e-wallets, MobilePayUSA does not use RFID chips embedded in smart phones that hold credit card numbers in order to process payments. Credit information is never stored on the phone or shared with the merchant with MobilePayUSA. This difference, according to MobilePayUSA, will prove to make their system more secure from the real
threat of illegal skimmers and hackers.
The company says their platform–unlike their NFC competitors–requires no expensive hardware upgrades. Instead, MobilePayUSA solution uses existing hardware to make the dream of mobile payments a reality, thus taking the cost hurdle out of the race for nationwide adoption.
MobilePayUSA will begin public beta-testing of their system by Q4 2011.
Source: MobilePayUSA
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