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While hard data are not yet available, anecdotal evidence indicates consumers are pleased with a mobile-payments pilot in San Francisco using phones equipped with near-field communication (NFC) technology and involving the Bay Area Rapid Transit rail system and Jack in the Box Inc. fast-food restaurants. “We've supported thousands of rides …
Read More »How Mobile Candy Dish Combines Handset-Based P-to-P with NFC
A 3-year-old startup in Alameda, Calif., is introducing a mobile wallet that combines contactless payments based on near-field communication (NFC) technology with person-to-person payments and mobile banking. Mobile Candy Dish Inc. last week rolled out its Blaze Mobile Wallet, which works on the AT&T Mobility and Sprint Nextel wireless networks …
Read More »WaMu’s Contactless Plunge Could Win over Skeptical Merchants
Washington Mutual Inc.'s announcement this week that it plans to issue 12 million to 15 million debit cards with MasterCard Inc.'s PayPass contactless functionality this year may do more than make the $328 billion bank the No. 1 PayPass issuer. It just might give the nascent contactless market enough critical …
Read More »New York-New Jersey Mass Transit Plans Contactless Pilot
Contactless payment took another step forward in the mass-transit market with the announcement on Thursday by two key New York City-area transportation agencies that they will run a pilot of MasterCard Worldwide's PayPass system next year. The Port Authority will install contactless readers at 40 turnstiles in all 13 of …
Read More »Citi Makes a Down Payment on M-Payments with ViVOtech Stake
Getting financial institutions and telecommunications providers to agree on major issues related to mobile payments is one of the most difficult problems faced by the nascent mobile-payments industry. Nonetheless, some banks want to plant a stake on the mobile-payments turf early, as evidenced by the announcement this week that Citigroup …
Read More »TSYS Joins Rivals First Data, Metavante in Mobile Banking And Payments
With its announcement on Thursday that it is working with a U.K. provider to enable mobile access to credit card accounts in the U.S., Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) has joined rival payments processors First Data Corp. and Metavante Corp. in entering the nascent but highly promising business of mobile …
Read More »Report: Merchants Need Interchange Breaks to Adopt Contactless
An absence of incentives?particularly for merchants?is handicapping contactless payments in the U.S., and by extension mobile payment at the point of sale could suffer, according to a new report. About 40,000 U.S. merchants now accept contactless cards and fobs, or 0.5% of all merchant locations. That number will grow to …
Read More »San Francisco NFC Pilot Tests Rewards As Well As Payments
A test of contactless payment via mobile phones, launched this week in San Francisco, relies on near-field communication (NFC) technology not only to handle transactions but also to manage consumer rewards. It differs from past NFC pilots in the U.S. in another way: It doesn't rely on either the MasterCard …
Read More »MasterCard Streamlines OTA for Its Spokane M-Payments Pilot
With its latest pilot for near-field communication (NFC) technology, which was announced on Monday and got under way last Thursday with select U.S. Bancorp credit card holders in Spokane, Wash., MasterCard Worldwide is testing a streamlined version of handset personalization it hopes will make it easier for consumers to adopt …
Read More »Consumers Want Just One Account for NFC Payments, Survey Says
Many consumers seem willing to use their cell phones or other mobile devices for in-store payments, but the majority wants to have only one credit or debit card account enabled for wireless payments, according to new findings from New York City-based technology research firm ABI Research. The preference for just …
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