Mobile Commerce

The carrier-led mobile-payments consortium, news of which became publicly available on Monday, may break new ground in bringing payments based on near-field communication (NFC) to market. But it could confront major issues in attracting merchants, especially the big chain retailers looking to chop transaction costs, says one expert observer who …

Executives with a number of the leading players in telecommunications and electronic payments have managed to reach a consensus on at least some of the issues that have divided them for years over the shape and direction of mobile payments in the U.S. While participants say they are not yet …

After taking a time out in June to resolve problems ranging from a parts shortage to merchant underwriting, the new payment service Square Inc. is about to commercially distribute its cube-shaped card readers for smart phones. Chief executive officer Jack Dorsey, co-founder of the Twitter social network, told attendees at …

It’s social payments, person-to-person payments, and micropayments all in one. And it’s sweet too. That’s the essence of a new electronic-gift service dubbed “eGift Social” that payment processor First Data Corp. launched recently with ice cream purveyor Cold Stone Creamery as its first client. Cold Stone, a unit of Scottsdale, …

Now that same-day clearing is coming to the automated clearing house network, payments players are starting to parse the impact the faster settlement time will have on emerging payment methods that rely at least in part on the ACH. While many payments executives are enthusiastic about the change, some experts …

As the young market for mobile payments on smart phones takes shape, industry players are scrambling to pair up with world-famous partners with massive numbers of consumer and business customers. Point-of-sale terminal maker VeriFone Systems Inc., for example, is selling hardware for its PAYware Mobile application in Apple Inc.’s retail …

Non-bank threats to banking franchises like electronic payments are nothing new, but if a researcher is correct, banks and the card networks they built could soon find themselves under assault from a whole new batch of players that have found a niche in social networks and online gaming. “I don’t …

Evidence mounted over the past week of the interest at least some major e-commerce processors have in using mobile platforms to penetrate the physical point of sale. First came word that Bling Nation Ltd., a Palo Alto, Calif.-based mobile-payments processor that depends on contactless stickers, is working on an integration …

JPMorgan Chase & Co. burst onto the consumer mobile remote deposit capture stage in a big way last week when it unveiled an updated online-banking app for Apple Inc.’s iPhone and iPod touch that facilitates remote capture and, for added measure, person-to-person payments. The application makes Chase the biggest bank …

Already claiming to be the leader in mobile payments, PayPal Inc. on Thursday announced it had optimized its Express Checkout service for mobile devices. The new mobile service caps a busy week for PayPal that included the disclosure that alternative-payment provider Bling Nation Ltd. is developing a PayPal application. PayPal …