PayPal liked Card.io so much, it not only used the startup to help it capture credit card images for its PayPal Here product, it is now buying the San Francisco startup. The team will help PayPal build out its digital wallet. Read more »
Square’s list of big name competitors is officially getting another billion dollar company. NCR Corp., the Duluth, GA maker of cash registers and ATM machines, is now launching NCR Silver, a cloud-based point of sale product aimed at small businesses. Read more »
Isis, the carrier-led mobile payment venture by Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile, is preparing for its big summer debut with the release of a series of video tutorials aimed at educating users on how to use its tap-and-go system. Read more »
LevelUp, a Boston-based loyalty and payment startup, is laying down the gauntlet to other payment competitors by doing away with processing fees forever in what it calls a bid to achieve “Interchange Zero.” It will only make money from selling offers and loyalty services. Read more »
Paydiant is announcing $12 million in Series B funding led by Stage 1 Ventures, which will go toward the build out of its white-label payment and offers platform for banks and retailers. The company enables banks and merchants to add mobile payment services into existing apps. Read more »
MasterCard and Deutsche Telekom announced a partnership today that will bring NFC contactless payments to DT’s 93 million mobile customers in Europe. That puts more momentum behind NFC payments and potentially sets up 2013 as a big break-out year for contactless payments. Read more »
Mobile payment startup Square is taking on its most requested feature: unique log-ins for multiple workers. Now, the Square Card Reader app will offer unique log-ins for up to 50 employees, so a manager can have them log-in separately without getting access to the business account. Read more »
Placecast, which allows retail brands and operators to push out location-based offers, is now making its ShopAlerts technology available to mobile payment and mobile wallet providers. Retailers, operators or credit card companies with existing payment apps will be able to incorporate ShopAlerts into their apps. Read more »
VeriFone is taking its newly launched SAIL mobile payment product to Android smartphones after debuting on the iPhone last month. The move helps VeriFone better compete with Square, an early mobile payment leader and PayPal Here, which are both available on iPhones and Android. Read more »
PayPal is undertaking a big reorganization that simplifies the company’s structure around a mobile theme. It’s part of a larger effort to build a more unified experience for customers that is easier to use across the company’s different access points. Read more »
Near field communication, the wireless technology that’s forever been poised to break out, may finally get the big push it needs. Code pulled from two iPhone prototypes suggest that upcoming iPhones will have NFC controllers connected to the power management unit, according to a new report. Read more »
Mobile payment start-up Square is working to fill out its menu of services and today it’s revealing new loyalty, inventory, analytics and discovery tools for Square Register and Pay with Square, helping Square appeal to a wider number of merchants. Read more »
As a small business owner, I’m delighted the field of mobile credit card processing is opening up. I compared Verifone’s Sail and Square’s services while processing payments for my business via my iPhone and iPad. Here’s what I found. Read more »
LevelUp, the local loyalty and payment app, is getting $12 million to expand the service nationwide. The service, which is an offshoot of location start-up SCVNGR, now has 200,000 users, who are spending $2 million a month with the app. Read more »
Intuit is taking a key step in its competition with Square and other payment rivals by integrating QuickBooks Point of Sale product with its GoPayment mobile payment product. That means that customers will have an easy way to combine a traditional POS experience with mobile payments. Read more »
Square, the breakout mobile payment hit, faces more competition from deep-pocketed competitors. But the company is content to craft its own commerce tools without opening up an API or striking big partnerships. Square’s COO Keith Rabois explains how it will win by going solo. Read more »
EBay’s CEO John Donahoe has called 2012 a year of testing for PayPal’s in-store payments as it gears up for a big push next year. The company is making good on that with the launch of its first barcode-based payments in the UK at four retailers. Read more »
Groupon is reportedly testing out its own Square-like mobile payment service. It’s a sign that local deals and loyalty providers are increasingly looking at adding mobile payments services to help build out their tool set for merchants and retailers. Read more »
PayPal unveiled 15 national retail partners that will support its in-store payment system, which is set to compete against the likes of credit cards and other emerging payment tools. It also launched a new mid-market payment tool for medium-sized businesses with multiple locations. Read more »
While VeriFone’s Square rival SAIL looks nothing like Square’s credit-card-swiping dongle, the company veered into flat-out imitation with its legal user agreement, which lifted much of its language directly from Square’s merchant user agreement. Read more »
PayPal’s years of experience in online payments is one of its biggest assets as it chases mobile and in-store transactions. But the by product of all that experience — mounds of data — could be an even bigger weapon. PayPal’s chief scientist Mok Oh explains the possibilities. Read more »
Isis, the mobile payment joint venture of AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, has added American Express cards to its wallet. The news helps build more momentum for the Isis payment platform, which now has a broad array of payment cards that will work inside the mobile wallet. Read more »
MasterCard is expanding its mobile payment service PayPass into a larger platform called PayPass Wallet Services that will enable PayPal-like online payments and will include APIs for developers to integrate their payment apps and services with PayPass. Read more »
Payment provider VeriFone is doubling down on the small and medium sized market with a new payment open platform called SAIL that will look to give merchants a more flexible tool for conducting transactions. SAIL also puts more big name pressure on Square. Read more »
Boku, one of the leaders in carrier billing, has finally signed a direct billing deal with Sprint, giving it direct integration with all four major U.S. operators. The broad coverage should make it more appealing to merchants and open up potential sales of non-digital goods. Read more »
Apple is reportedly preparing an MVNO that would provide wireless services to iPhones and iPads via multiple carrier partners. But the move would be a huge mistake for Cupertino, and it’s extremely unlikely Apple Mobile will ever come to ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
V.me, Visa’s digital wallet competitor to PayPal, is scheduled to debut this fall in the UK, France and Spain. It will be an online payment service at first but the bigger plan is to make it an in-store tool for transactions using NFC. Read more »
Casual food restaurant chain T.G.I. Fridays has become the first national chain to incorporate mobile payment option Tabbedout, which will allow diners to open a tab and pay their bill right from their smartphone. Read more »
Even with the threat of PayPal looming, Square is seeing no slow down. The company told Bloomberg Wednesday that its annualized rate of processed transactions is now up to $5 billion, up from $4 billion a month ago Read more »
PayNearMe, a cash payment system that lets users pay for online purchases, bills and bus tickets at 7-Eleven stores, is now offering a fully mobile payment option. Users who don’t have a card can complete their purchases without having to print out anything. Read more »
Boston rail commuters will soon have the ability to use their smartphones to buy and display their train tickets. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority will launch the U.S.’s first smartphone rail ticketing system this fall through a partnership with London-based Masabi. Read more »
Samsung will take the wraps off its latest Galaxy handset at an event in London on May 3. You’re all thinking this will be the Galaxy S III, and you’re probably right, but there may be more to this event than a mere smartphone unveiling. Read more »
Rovio, Uber, Fab.com, Airbnb share a common thread: their payments are powered by Braintree, which has become a force in the online commerce world. The company is now processing $4 billion annually and is on pace to break $1 billion for mobile in the next month. Read more »
Isis, the joint mobile payment venture between Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile, has been taking a slow approach as it heads towards a limited launch in two cities this summer. But the methodical pace appears to be setting Isis up to be a long-term player. Read more »
PayPal is organizing its payments products into one service for small businesses called PayPal Payments that is meant to provide an array of tools for online, in-person and mobile payments. It takes what PayPal has done online and marries it with its mobile and in-store tools. Read more »
GoPago, a cloud-based mobile payment system backed by Chase allows consumers to order and pay ahead from their mobile app and essentially skip the line at all kinds of businesses. It is now launching publicly in San Francisco, the start of a nationwide rollout. Read more »
What is it going to take for mobile payments to finally register in the mind of the consumer? Maybe it’s time to think about mobile shopping rather than mobile payments, panelists argued Tuesday at the VentureBeat Mobile Summit. Read more »
Phones embedded with near-field communications chips are beginning to proliferate, but their uptake is much slower in North America than in Europe and Asia, according to Berg Insight. Of the 30 million NFC handsets sold, roughly 5 million wound up in the hands of North American consumers. Read more »
While Square has been known for its credit card reading dongle, the company is showing even more attention to its payment app, which is being relaunched today as Pay with Square. The mobile wallet app holds the future for Square and its bid to remake payments. Read more »
In yet another sign of the slow progress of mobile payments despite strong interest, Google is rethinking its approach to Google Wallet and may consider sharing revenue with wireless carriers, according to a new report. Otherwise, carriers may push their own payments tech instead. Read more »
