American Airlines has announced that it will begin this summer to transition to cashless cabins onboard flights within the United States and to and from Canada. "On these flights, American will only accept major credit cards or debit cards for onboard purchases such as headsets, fresh light meals, snacks and alcoholic beverages."

"Moving to a cashless cabin allows us to streamline the inflight sales process for both our customers and flight attendants," said Lauri Curtis, American's Vice President - Onboard Service.

Flight attendants will use a hand-held Onboard Sales Recorder to charge credit and debit cards, eliminating the need to search for small bills or change. The airline has been using these user-friendly devices since May 2006. American Express® and other major credit and debit cards will be accepted. Receipts will be provided to passengers upon request.

Qualcomm has announced that it has added support for Near Field Communication (NFC) technology to certain chipsets in its product portfolio. "Qualcomm is helping accelerate the commercial availability of mobile handsets featuring the short-range technology and is engaged with leading NFC solutions providers to develop reference designs based on the Company's Mobile Station Modem chipsets. NFC technology is well suited for payment, mass transit, ticketing and other similar applications requiring a quick and secure contactless exchange of data between devices that are in close proximity to each other." READ MORE »

Miami, Florida-based Mazooma has announced what it's calling "the first real-time, non-credit eCommerce payment solution of its kind. By easily and securely enabling online payments directly from consumer bank accounts, Mazooma allows millions to pay for their eCommerce purchases instantly without a credit card."

Internet Retailer profiles Mazooma in an article here. READ MORE »

Digital Insight, the financial institutions division of Intuit, has delivered Small Business FinanceWorks™ to help financial insitutions acquire low cost small business deposits and sustain a competitive advantage by offering an online hub for their small business customers.

"Small Business FinanceWorks is a new online financial management tool that small businesses can access through the online banking site of their local financial institution. By offering Small Business FinanceWorks to their customers, banks and credit unions now have the unique opportunity to attract new small business customers, strengthen existing relationships and gain a competitive advantage." READ MORE »

Accor Services and MasterCard Europe have announced a strategic alliance including the creation of a new company, PrePay Solutions. According to the two firms, "the new company is designed to combine the prepaid and electronic payments expertise of both organisations for business players looking to benefit from the fast growing euro 130 billion European prepaid opportunity." Accor Services will be the majority shareholder in PrePay Solutions at 67 percent, with MasterCard Europe holding a 33 percent stake in the company. A presentation describing the JV is available online. READ MORE »

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