US mobile wallet users spent $500M in 2012 – nearly all of it at Starbucks
While other mobile wallet companies struggle to build up their customer and retail bases, Starbucks is rocking the still nascent in-store digital payments market. Read more »
Boost’s new Mobile Wallet is coming to Virgin and maybe even Sprint
photo: Sprint
Sprint has big plans for its digital wallet. It wants to become a “virtual bank” for customers who don’t have checking accounts and a supplemental financial service for those that do. Read more »
Oh no, Samsung has a Passbook wallet app, too
Android fans that want something akin to Apple’s Passbook wallet features will get their wish as Samsung has the solution. Here’s why that’s good and bad. Read more »
Visa’s digital wallet V.me launches publicly, plans in-store rollout in 2013
photo: V.me
Visa’s digital wallet V.me is exiting beta and gearing up for a big holiday season with 50 banking partners and about two dozen merchants. V.me helps simplify transactions online and on mobile and will move to in-store point of sale next year. Read more »
PassSource helps developers create passes for iOS 6 Passbook
From iOS developer Kudit, the service will let anyone easily participate in iOS Passbook, a feature coming in the next version of the software. In the future, PassSource will also offer an analytics dashboard for pass creators to track how their passes are being used. Read more »
Forget reward points: AmEx gives users Farmville cash
American Express is teaming with Zynga on a reward program that will link offline spending on its Serve pre-paid cards to in-game rewards in Farmville. It’s an ambitious attempt at boosting the reach of AmEx’s Serve product and tying real-world spending to online virtual rewards. Read more »
Visa launches V.me digital wallet beta with Buy.com
While credit card rival MasterCard announced its own digital wallet platform, Visa has some news of its own. It’s launching the first beta of its wallet service V.me with online retailer Buy.com as it prepares to go public with the its payment product. Read more »
Credit cards get connected to offer coupons, loyalty
CardSpring last month launches an application platform that allows developers to create applications that can work with credit cards. Now, it’s getting a boost with the help of payment processor First Data, which is using CardSpring’s API as the basis for an offer platform for retailers. Read more »
4 payment industry predictions for 2012
It’s often difficult to separate what will shape the future of payments from what is just hype. PayPal’s Scott Dunlap focuses on the “innovation clusters” to get past the hype and see where mobile payment technology will be taking us in the near future. Read more »
Pageonce aspires to be a digital wallet with mobile bill pay
Pageonce was one of the first iPhone apps and has built a following of more than 5 million users as a mobile financial service letting people track their bills from their smartphone. But the service has been missing one big thing until today: mobile bill pay. Read more »
Square what? Dwolla shows the power of cash networks
While tech darling Square gets all the press, mobile payments start-up Dwolla is enjoying its own impressive growth and just hit $1 million in daily transactions, putting it on a faster initial pace than Square. It’s showing the power of building a cash-based payment network. Read more »
DealsGoRound’s offers central wallet for managing daily deals
DealsGoRound, a secondary marketplace where users can buy and sell daily deals, is launching a digital wallet service. Now deal addicts the world over can manage their deals all in one place, and receive an alert when a deal is about to expire. Read more »
Android This Week: Google Wallet; Smarter Keyboard; Flyer Lands
Google Wallet debuted this week for Sprint customers owning the Nexus S handset while the smartest Android keyboard, SwiftKey, gains intelligence and better word prediction, thanks to the cloud. HTC’s Flyer found its way to my desk and first impressions are favorable, as you can see. Read more »
Why Winning Over Merchants Will be Key To Mobile Payments
There are a ton of mobile payment initiatives getting under way. But to get mobile payments to soar, it takes the buy in from merchants, who have to be convinced that it’s a necessary and beneficial step up from the current way of doing business. Read more »
Visa Looks Beyond the Card With One-Click Digital Wallet
Visa is starting to put its big payment acquisitions to work with a new a digital wallet offering that looks to bring one-click transactions to ecommerce, mobile and social networking sites. The wallet will help consumers checkout faster and should reduce online abandoned shopping carts for retailers. Read more »
