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.
Intuit Extends Free Card Reader Offer for GoPayment System
Intuit has extended its introductory offer of a free GoPayment mobile payment app for processing credit cards, along with a free credit card reader and no monthly fee.
Intuit first made the offer in early January. Due to a high level of demand, Intuit will continue the offer indefinitely so that the smallest of small businesses, such as dog walkers, nannies and jewelry makers, can affordably start processing credit cards on their mobile phones. Since the initial offer, Intuit has more than tripled the number of customers signing up for GoPayment each day.
“With our original announcement of GoPayment’s free credit card reader and no monthly fee, we hoped to make it more affordable for any person in business no matter how small,” said Chris Hylen, vice president and general manager of Intuit’s Payment Solutions division.
“The strong demand we’ve seen confirmed our beliefs. We are therefore continuing the offer as we now know for certain that it’s meeting the mobile payment needs of both the person who makes an occasional sale to the hundreds of thousands of small businesses that have relied on us for years to get paid.”
GoPayment was introduced two years ago as one of the first mobile payment services on the market. It was designed to help people easily and quickly get paid via their mobile devices wherever they do business. GoPayment is available for iOS, Android and Blackberry.
GoPayment has no long-term contracts, cancellation, gateway or set-up fees, and up to 50 users can use a single account.
More information: GoPayment
Source: Business Wire
Western Union Partners with Etisalat to Provide International Mobile Money Transfers
Western Union and Etisalat Group, a mobile phone company in Asia, the Middle East and Africa, will introduce Western Union Mobile Money Transfer service in the 18 countries where Etisalat operates.
Once agreements are signed between Western Union and Etisalat’s mobile network operators and the service is introduced, it will enable Etisalat’s subscribers to send and receive Western Union money transfer transactions using their mobile “wallets,” or accounts tied to their mobile phones. Subscribers who initiate transactions from their mobile phones would be able to send funds to a receiver for cash payout at more than 400,000 Western Union Agent locations in 200 countries and territories. In addition, Etisalat subscribers would be able to send funds to other selected mobile subscribers who have mobile wallets.
“Our research shows that many of our customers want to send and receive money via electronic channels like the mobile phone,” said Khalid Fellahi, Senior Vice President of Electronic Channels, Western Union. “This alliance with Etisalat will offer the company’s extensive subscriber base a convenient service they can use anywhere, anytime.”
Etisalat subscribers who receive a Western Union money transfer in their mobile wallets would be able to use the funds to pay bills, top up airtime, send money domestically or internationally, or withdraw cash at a cash-out agent or any participating ATM.
Commenting on the alliance, Essa Al-Haddad, Etisalat’s Group Chief Marketing Officer, said: “Etisalat’s association with Western Union is a substantiation of our relentless commitment to increase the reach of our customers by offering innovative services. This strategic alliance will help us leverage each other’s experience and strengths – including our strong base of subscribers and award-winning customer service and Western Union’s expertise in moving money around the globe and their well-known brand – to enable customers to send and receive money using their mobile phones.”
Rashed Alabbar, Etisalat’s Director of Mobile Commerce, said, “This agreement with Western Union is part of Etisalat’s broader mobile commerce strategy to offer innovative and cost-effective mobile payment applications to our 135 million mobile customers across our operations in 18 countries, including the UAE. Etisalat has been a leader in providing innovative mCommerce services in the UAE, and this association will enable us to extend the reach of our services across the globe.”
In 2010, Etisalat Group closed the year by reaching 135 million customers, and 2% revenue growth over 2009.
Western Union offers the Mobile Money Transfer Service in the Philippines with Smart Communications and Globe Telecom; in Kenya with Safaricom; in Malaysia with Maxis; and in Canada with EnStream. In addition, consumers can now visit one of more than 80,000 Western Union Agent locations in 48 countries to send money directly to a mobile wallet in select countries. Western Union also has agreements with other mobile operators and banks to introduce the service in the future.
Source: Business Wire
NewNet and Perceptive Development Demonstrate Secure Mobile Payment Solution
The ubiquitous availability of mobile connectivity has spurred many ground-breaking applications and services. Mobile payment solutions are now fundamentally changing the way that payment transactions and services are being deployed. Many large credit card companies, payment acquirers and processing banks, mobile carriers, and a host of innovative new entrants are creating new ways to drive a number of easy to use solutions to the marketplace. A critical component to broad market acceptance and the successful proliferation of mobile commerce and transaction services is the promise to ensure secure access, confidentiality and privacy.
NewNet Communication Technologies and Perceptive Development, Inc., demonstrated an end-to-end secure mobile payment solution at the 2011 GSMA-Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
NewNet’s secure access Traxcom products process over 1.5 billion transactions a month and provide secure connectivity that enables the delivery of legacy transaction payment services and brand new services such as mobile payments, e-banking, and e-commerce. Integrated, next generation encryption technology such as the Derived Unique Key Payment Transaction (DUKPT) ensures data confidentiality and safety, and enables carriers to expand current services and enter new markets such as healthcare.
The Perceptive Development FlexTransact portfolio of mobile payment products and software services for mobile solutions are available on a broad variety of smart phone platforms including Apple iPhone®, and Google Android. FlexTransact solutions provide a highly secure, easy to deploy and easy to use credit card payment client solution to meet the growing demand in the marketplace.
“The mobile payments market is growing rapidly and we are excited to host this demonstration of the AccessGuard Platform based, end-to-end solution together with client side product suppliers such as Perceptive Development to deliver the promise of secure, high performance broadband and mobile payment solutions,” said Prasad Kallur, NewNet’s Executive Vice President for Business Development.
“We are very excited to team with NewNet to demonstrate this end-to-end secure mobile payment solution,” said Jim Medeiros, CEO at Perceptive Development. “Our expertise in developing secure payment processing solutions, coupled with NewNet’s payment processing platforms, provides a wonderful opportunity for us to combine efforts. We look to continue to enhance and broaden our relationship with NewNet as this important market evolves.”
The Derived Unique Key Payment Transaction (DUKPT) data encryption enables mobile devices with add-on transaction processing devices, such as magnetic strip card readers, smart card devices and NFC enabled Point of Sale devices, to work together with the AccessGuard Platforms to deliver a highly secure end-to-end mobile payments solution.
Source: RealWire
Hottest Mobile Payment Startups
Here’s a preliminary list of the hottest mobile payment startups. Feel free to add to the conversation:
Carrier Billing
Purchase in App (not billed via carrier)
- Apple (iTunes)
Contactless / Mobile Contactless:
P2P Transfer
- Obopay
- PayPal Mobile
- Venmo
Mobile Checkout
- Square
- Verifone
China
- UMPay
- SmartPay
- LianLian
India
- Paymate
Philippines
- Globe GCASH
Japan
- Mobile Suica
- Edy
Reference: GusFundler
Deutsche Telekom May Purchase Payments Company for NFC Expansion
Deutsche Telecom AG may buy or partner with a payment processor as it looks to expand into near-field communication transactions using mobile phones.
Deutsche Telekom, Europe’s largest phone company, may “have financial relationships and perhaps own a financial entity” as demand for the transactions and associated services grows, Chief Technology Officer Ed Kozel said in an interview in Barcelona today.
via Bloomberg.
Mobile Operators Call For Openness As Data Load Rises
The surging data traffic across the globe creates significant opportunities for mobile operators, but the industry also needs to focus on a number of key priorities, including greater openness, a number of operators said Tuesday.
In a keynote speech at the ongoing Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, industry organization GSMA’s Chief Executive Robert Conway said there are likely to be around one billion mobile broadband connections by 2012.
via Wall Street Journal.
Chase Partners with Mitek Systems for Mobile Check Deposit Solutions
Chase has entered into a strategic agreement with Mitek Systems, Inc., a developer of advanced-image analytics and mobile-document-capture applications, to develop a suite of innovative image-capture solutions across multiple smartphone operating systems.
“Mitek’s Mobile Deposit product helps us deliver on that promise by making mobile check depositing convenient and quick, across a variety of platforms.”
The agreement enables Chase to build on the success of its award-winning QuickDeposit feature by deploying Mitek’s mobile-banking and advanced image-capture and analytics products across a variety of smartphone operating systems. QuickDeposit allows customers to deposit checks anytime and anywhere with a click of their mobile phone camera.
“Customers demand an efficient and reliable mobile-banking experience from Chase,” said Jack Stephenson, managing director of Mobile, Ecommerce and Payments, JPMorgan Chase. “Mitek’s Mobile Deposit product helps us deliver on that promise by making mobile check depositing convenient and quick, across a variety of platforms.”
Mitek President and CEO James B. DeBello said: “At Mitek, we enhance the consumer’s mobile-payment experience with advanced capabilities for depositing checks and paying bills that are accurate, secure and easy to use. We are proud to partner with Chase for the use of our patented software solutions.”
In addition to its QuickDeposit feature, Chase provides consumers with industry-leading mobile banking services, including:
- Award-winning Chase mobile banking applications for iPhone and Android users.
- Text Banking: allows customers to request from any mobile phone and receive within seconds their account balances and transaction history on checking, savings, credit card, mortgage and home equity accounts.
- Instant Action Alerts: text messages are sent the moment a checking account balance falls below a pre-selected amount; the customer can then instantly transfer funds through a text-message reply.
- Chase QuickPay feature is now available for iPhone users, allowing them to send money to and receive funds from virtually anyone who has signed up for the service with an e-mail address.
- Mobile Chase.com website, offering standard services for all mobile banking customers.
Source: Business Wire
Nokia Siemens Networks and MoreMagic Solutions Partnership to Provide Mobile Commerce and Financial Services
Nokia Siemens Networks and MoreMagic Solutions have announced a global partnership to provide mobile commerce and financial services. The jointly developed Mobile Payment Solution enables the delivery of a range of services including money transfer, mobile banking, mobile payments and near field communication (NFC) proximity payments.
The joint Mobile Payment Solution interconnects consumers, mobile operators, financial institutions, retailers, agents and other members of the mobile commerce and financial services value chain to enable seamless monetary transactions. The approach is particularly attractive for developing markets where fewer people have access to bank and credit cards to transfer money.
Rick Centeno, head of charging, billing and care at Nokia Siemens Networks said: “We are very excited about the growth in the mobile payments space in general and about mobile money and NFC payments in particular. Our partnership with MoreMagic provides us with a flexible architecture that integrates very well with our flagship products. The combination of MoreMagic solutions with Nokia Siemens Networks’ integrated Subscriber Data Management, Identity Management and Unified Charging provides a comprehensive set of Mobile Payment Solutions in this innovative market segment.”
Pankaj Gulati, CEO and Chairman, MoreMagic added: “Mobile commerce and financial services present some of the most exciting opportunities available today which are totally revolutionizing the way people interact with cash and manage their finances. We are delighted to be partnering with Nokia Siemens Networks and look forward to the evolution of mobile payment services.”
LPTIC (Libya Post, Telecommunications and Information Technology Holding Company) is trialing Mobile Payment Solutions in close collaboration with Al Madar and Libyana, the two leading mobile operators in Libya. LPTIC plans to extend mobile payments as a service to all mobile operators across Libya as an enhancement to its operations. The Project which is set to run over a period of four months, will provide customers with easy, secure and convenient access to basic financial services which has previously been enjoyed only by a small percentage of the population and access to NFC proximity payments for purchasing anywhere at anytime.
Dr. Samir Elbuni CEO of LPTIC said, “We are delighted to bring state-of-the-art mobile payments technologies to Libya through internationally recognized partners. We believe that the market is primed for such a solution and we expect a huge acceptance in the market by mobile-savvy consumers.”
Source: PR Newswire
Garanti and Turkish Mobile Launch First Nationwide NFC SIM Mobile Payment Program
Garanti and Turkish mobile network operator Avea recently moved from pilot phase to general commercial availability of their system to adapt existing mobile phones for NFC payments.
VeriFone Systems’ NFC contactless payment acceptance systems are a key interface between merchants and consumers’ mobile phones in Garanti Bank’s first-in-world rollout of a nationwide integrated NFC SIM mobile payment program.
Consumers can purchase and install NFC capable SIM cards that allow them to use their mobile phones for electronic payment at NFC contactless acceptance devices in merchant locations. VeriFone has supplied 10,000 NFC-capable devices to Garanti for merchant use.
“Garanti demonstrated that NFC is now commercially viable,” said Soner Casur, vice president and general manager of VeriFone South East Europe. “The merchant/consumer interface is crucial to success of NFC mobile payment adoption and VeriFone is thrilled to provide key payment acceptance solutions that make it easy to transition to this new era of mobile payments.”
VeriFone is one of the main suppliers of payment solutions to Garanti, with more than 150,000 systems implemented throughout Turkey. For NFC mobile payments, VeriFone’s PINpad 1000SE currently provide merchants and consumers with a field-ready solution for implementation of mobile payments.
VeriFone systems have been in use for Garanti’s existing Bonus Trink contactless payment system, which has provided bank customers with the ability to make payments using a credit card, key fob, watch or the Bonus Trink contactless sticker.
With the new add-on SIM card with antenna from Gemalto and Garanti pre-paid MasterCard PayPass that is loaded in the SIM manufacturing stage, consumers can immediately adapt existing and new mobiles for NFC mobile payments. This product is the first commercial add-on NFC SIM that supports open platform payment system around the world.
Source: Business Wire
Google NFC Mobile Payment System Announcement May Come This Week, Says Analyst
Susquehanna Financial Group analyst Marianne Wolk believes Google could unveil a mobile-payment system, based on near-field communication (NFC), at Mobile World Congress this week. The conference is being held in Barcelona, Spain from February 14-17, 2011.
“We see several challenges to Google as a mobile-payment platform. Merchant acceptance is critical, and even with a well-connected merchant acquirer such as First Data or GPN, merchants are reluctant to adopt an offering that is not an industrywide standard,” Wolk wrote in a research note Feb. 14, 2011. Google declined to comment.
via eWeek.com.