Mobile Payment Updates - Mar 1

SPEEDING UP PERSON-TO-PERSON PAYMENTS WITH NEW VISA SERVICE
"A new Visa person-to-person payments service will transform how Visa cards are used – from being not only the best way to pay, but also the best way to receive payments quickly. The result of a major enhancement to the Visa network, the new service enables consumers to send funds to Visa card accounts within minutes both domestically and internationally. It is available to participating Visa clients and their customers in markets across Asia Pacific, Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa."

FICO Offers Telrock Mobile Payment Apps to Help Clients Improve Customer Service and Payments
"FICO, the leading provider of analytics and decision management technology, and London-based Telrock Communications Ltd., developer of mobile applications for banking, payments and debt management, today announced an agreement under which FICO will resell Telrock’s interactive text and smartphone applications around the world. Telrock applications give FICO clients a new, fully secure mobile channel for communicating with customers, improving customer service and collecting payments."

Mobile Payments Challenge Credit Cards
"Over the past decade, Americans have been writing fewer checks and using more and more plastic. But now, some are predicting the demise of the credit card, paying by smartphone could elbow out giants such as Visa and MasterCard."

Video Interview: Boku’s Ron Hirson Describes Their Mobile Payments Service
"Mobile Payments were a hot topic at this year’s Mobile World Congress. I mean HOT (well, if your into that kind of thing of course). Based on what I saw at the event though, there are a lot of people into that kind of thing. In fact, they had an entire day dedicated to the concept. Panels and speakers talking shop, standing room only crowds, hundreds and hundreds of suits – any payments nerd or finance freak’s paradise. Let’s be honest that sometimes conference panels can be dry and boring, especially those describing financial networks, but I have to say these were quite interesting. There are a lot of good ideas floating around out there and the competition is going to get intense."

Mobile phone e-wallets get closer to reality
"Later this year you'll be able to pay for clothes, taxi fare, and dinner with your mobile phone and leave your credit cards and cash at home. Visa is planning a commercial rollout in the U.S. in the second half of this year of a service for allowing allow people to turn their existing smartphones into electronic wallets. It uses Near Field Communication (NFC) short-range wireless technology and includes real-time anti-fraud alerts and other features designed to protect consumers from fraud, Bill Gajda, global head of Visa Mobile, told CNET in an interview at Mobile World Congress 2011 here this week. Visa was demonstrating its PayWave mobile payment system at the show."