Tomorrow morning Obopay is announcing that it has gone live on all Amp'd Mobile devices - delivering what the company calls "the first operator-supported mobile payments service in the U.S." As a part of a co-marketing initiative, Amp'd will feature Obopay's mobile payments service on its home page where visitors can sign up and receive a $25 bonus in their newly created Obopay account.

Lightspeed Research has announced results of a recent survey finding that 54.3% of U.S. respondents are paying for their groceries with a debit card or a debit/credit card combination. Second highest payment method was cash at 19.6%, followed by major credit card at 14% and check with 10.5%. The poll collected responses from 106,784 U.S. panelists and, asked what method of payment one typically uses when grocery shopping.

Visa USA has announced results from a recent survey concluding that 68 percent of the financial executives and cash managers surveyed plan to reduce their reliance on checks for commercial payments and that 63 percent plan to increase their use of corporate payment cards.

The Payments Card Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia has released a new workshop summary titled "Supply- and Demand-Side Developments Influencing Growth in the Debit Market" (PDF). "On August 3, 2006, Ronald Congemi, senior vice president of strategic industry relations for First Data Corporation, led a PCC workshop to examine developments on both the supply side and demand side that are influencing growth in the debit card market. On the supply side, Congemi addressed banks’ increasing recognition of the importance of payments-related revenues in their institutional profit and loss statements, the effect of differences in interchange fees between PIN and signature debit, and the greater focus on cost structures for debit card issuers. On the demand side, he considered how changes in consumer payment preferences and innovations in the debit market were influencing consumer behavior and payment choice and, ultimately, competition among payment alternatives." [Editor's note: A most useful review of the perspectives of a leading PIN-debit industry veteran. One interesting data point from the paper: "in the first quarter of 2006, the number of PIN-POS debit locations had reached 64 percent of the total locations." Highly recommended reading!]

Yodlee has announced Yodlee Mobile, a new service to be available early next year that enables financial institutions to make online banking applications available to customers via the mobile channel.

In an article titled 'How Credit Cards Soak You", Daniel Kadlec writes for Time.com about his experience with a Kohl's credit card - when he missed his payment due date by two days after charging a pair of $45 sneakers. He reports that "card companies are weighing a fee for people who pay their balance every month."

Miguel Helft writes for the New York Times about some of PayPal's alumni and what they're doing these days.

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