Carlo Longingo reports on SimPay, the mobile payments consortium formed by Orange, Telefonica Moviles, T-Mobile and Vodafone.

A recent UK survey of 2500 Net users found that only 7% said they would sign up for this type of service, with a resounding 64% saying they wouldn't. Those are some pretty substantial numbers to turn around.

In a press release, Visa USA reported yesterday that payment volume on its check card products increased twenty percent in the first half of 2003 as compared to the same period in 2002. During the period, more than 133 million U.S. Visa check cardholders spent more than $134 billion. Volume on the Visa check card now represents more than a third of total Visa volume in the U.S.

The Business Standard reports that sales volume on Visa cards in India grew over forty percent in the second quarter over the same quarter last year.

The acceptance infrastructure have grown in the country with banks like HDFC bank and ICICI Bank which were the new kids in the block deploying around 30,000 and 10,000 electronic data capture (EDC) terminals in the last one and half years. These terminals were deployed majorly in the smaller towns. The total number of EDC terminals in the country is now at around 70,000.