Clinkle promised a digital wallet. Instead it delivered a piece of plastic. It’s debit card will be integrated into a new smartphone rewards networks, but it’s a far cry from the mobile payments technology it hyped.
MyCheck is expanding beyond NYC into more restaurants and it’s taking its partnership with PayPal along for the ride. Diners can view, split and pay their bills from the PayPal app.
Loop’s ChargeCase fits over an iPhone 5 or 5s but otherwise works exactly like it’s fob. You press a button and the case emits a magnetic field that emulates the data stripe on your credit card.
Wallet wasn’t the hit Square was expecting, as consumers found little reason to abandon their credit cards. But a new Square app rolling out in NYC and SF refocuses Square’s digital wallet on order-ahead transactions.
After grabbing loads of attention with a $25 million seed round and several high-profile hires, Clinkle is now seeing those new hires depart, starting with COO Barry McCarthy and its latest recruit, design guru Josh Brewer.
Mobile wallet startup Loop has launched its iPhone app and is selling its credit-card emulating fob and iPhone case on its websites. I gave a Loop a spin this week, and it works as advertised.
Clinkle claims it will invigorate the lackluster mobile payments market, though it still won’t tell us how. Former Netflix finance honcho Barry McCarthy, however, is confident enough in Clinkle’s plan to take over the COO role.
Masabi is a U.K. startup specializing and cloud-based smartphone ticketing technologies for public transit, and it just landed a $2.8 million strategic investment led by Bill Ford’s Fontinalis Venutures.
BillGuard, a crowd-sourced financial protection service that flags suspicious activity for consumers, is taking its services to mobile wallet app Lemon, which has 2.5 million users on iOS and Android. Now, Lemon users can check their balance on stored cards, see recent transactions and suspicious activity.
Most mobile wallets are about replacing bank cards, or tickets and coupons. A new mobile wallet from Giesecke & Devrient aims to replace not only these, but also ID cards, building and vehicle keys, and public transport tickets.
After missing its planned summer launch, mobile payment joint venture Isis is now finally live in its first two test cities of Austin and Salt Lake City. Users can try out Isis on nine handsets from Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile.
Placecast is adding card-linked offers to its ShopAlerts location-based offers platform. Now, users can get a message about a nearby deal and then redeem it with a swipe of their credit or debit card.
Lemon, maker of a mobile wallet apps that stores digital copies of IDs, cards, receipts, coupons and tickets, is now opening up its app to outside publishers, who can integrate their cards and services through a new API. This will heighten the competition with Apple’s Passbook.
LevelUp is expanding its reach with a white label tool that lets merchants build their own custom app that uses LevelUp for payments and loyalty. That can help LevelUp appeal to merchants who want to offer a branded app but still connect to LevelUp’s network.
Social commerce startup Wikets, backed by Andreessen Horowitz and Battery Ventures, is rolling out a new version of its app that builds out its shopping functionality. To date, it has focused on building a network of shoppers who ask for and make recommendations.
The mobile payment market is getting even more crowded thanks to a big play by a consortium of retailers including Target, Walmart, Sears and others who are creating their own mobile wallet. The move will give them a chance to save costs and protect their data.
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.
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.
Lemon, a mobile expense receipt tracker, isn’t just interested in helping people organize their receipts by taking pictures of them. It is looking at becoming a full mobile wallet for users and it’s just raised $8 million to go after that goal.
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.
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.
iCache is working to help people leave their wallets behind using an innovative iPhone case called Geode, that can digitize all of a user’s payment cards and loyalty cards and provides a simple way to present them at checkout at all stores.
PayPal hasn’t done much to overhaul the consumer experience of its digital wallet. But the company is poised to launch a redesigned experience, which it will provide a sneak preview of next week at South by Southwest in advance of a big launch this summer.
The future of location-based services is in commerce, payments and deals, said Sam Altman, founder of Loopt. He just sold his startup to pre-paid card provider Green Dot and is working on mobile payment products. That’s where he said location will have the biggest impact.
Walmart, Target and other retailers are working together on their own next generation payment system that will compete against the likes of Google Wallet, Isis, PayPal and many others. While it will add more confusion, it makes some sense for retailers to pursue their own system.
Network operators are once again pushing the idea of a “mobile wallet” in an effort to grab a slice of purchases for virtual and physical goods. But they would be wise to view themselves as potential extensions of existing payment systems — not replacements of them.