First came PayPal Inc., then Google Inc.'s Checkout service. Now MODASolutions, an Ottawa-based company that lets consumers pay e-retailers as if they were paying any other online bill, is offering incentives tied to the holiday-shopping season to promote alternative ways to pay online. But in MODASolutions' case, its SECURE-eBill service …

Processor Metavante Corp. has come up with a seemingly natural but rare pairing of two booming payment niches: payroll cards and electronic bill payments. A major provider of both services to financial institutions, Milwaukee-based Metavante this week introduced what it calls Metavante Prepaid Bill Payment. The service makes Internet-based bill …

MasterCard Worldwide announced on Thursday the start of a contactless-payment pilot in Dallas using mobile phones enabled by near-field communication (NFC) technology. The pilot, which is expected to involve about 500 subscribers of 7-Eleven Inc.'s Speak Out Wireless service, is the second real-world test of NFC payment in the U.S. …

Seeking to distinguish itself in a growing crowd of mobile-payment processors, Obopay Inc. saw its application go live this week on Amp'd Mobile Inc., a wireless network aimed at the youth market. This development follows by one week an agreement the Redwood City, Calif.-based startup struck with ViVOtech Inc. that …

Looking to bolster its business with retailers, Atlanta-based CheckFree Corp. this week unveiled its CheckFreePay Link service aimed at helping stores draw more walk-in traffic by offering bill-payment services for local utilities and other billers. CheckFree Pay's existing CheckFreePay network has 11,000 agent sites located in check-cashing outlets, grocery stores, …

Consumers who participated in a recently ended test in Atlanta of contactless payment on mobile phones may have warmed to the technology (Digital Transactions News, Sept. 8), but banks, transaction processors, independent sales organizations, and other players looking to cash in could now face a formidable hurdle: the wireless phone …

In coming months, software colossus Microsoft Corp. will be reaping bushels of publicity about Microsoft Windows Vista, the newest version of the world's leading desktop operating system that's scheduled for release early next year. Along for the ride, and with a novel approach to the electronic payments business, is a …

A Conshohocken, Pa.-based processor has begun marketing a service that allows employees covered by flexible-spending health-care plans to use any payment or loyalty card they have to access benefits. Finpago Inc. announced this week an agreement with health-benefits administrator WageWorks Inc., San Mateo, Calif., to launch its FSAok AnyCard program …

In a deal on which the two parties spent the weekend hammering out final details, Discover Financial Services LLC and Global Payments Inc. on Monday said Global would take over processing and other acquiring functions on Discover transactions with merchants for which Global processes Visa USA and MasterCard Worldwide transactions. …

Looking to make inroads in the U.S. mobile-commerce market, Valista Ltd. has launched a hosted version of its payments-gateway product and has aimed it squarely at mobile operators hoping to cash in on the trend toward so-called off-deck transactions. The payments-software vendor, based in Dublin, Ireland, and in San Mateo, …