NetBanker has announced the first of the 60 companies that will be showcased at the upcoming FinovateSpring 2011 conference being held in San Francisco on May 10 and 11th at the San Francisco Design Center Concourse. They are also promising that additional companies will likely be added as the event draws near.

In related news, FinovateFall 2011 will take place on September 20 and 21 in New York City at Pier 92, a much larger venue than last year's conference.

"In January 2010, the Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta and Boston, through their Retail Payments Risk Forum and Payments Research groups, convened a selected set of key players in this country's emerging mobile payments ecosystem. The goal of the meeting was to facilitate a discussion among all involved parties as to how a successful mobile payments (as opposed to mobile banking) regimen could evolve in the U.S." The resulting paper is available here.

American Express has announced Serve, a "digital payment and commerce platform that gives consumers a new way to spend, send and receive money with services that go beyond the existing global payment networks."

With Serve, consumers can make purchases and person-to-person (P2P) payments online, via mobile phones, and at millions of merchants who accept American Express cards. Serve unifies multiple payment options into a single account that can be funded from a bank account, debit, credit or charge card, or by receiving money from another Serve account.

The company says it hopes to use the new payment brand to expand into new segments of the market that do not rely on traditional charge and credit cards. The website is www.serve.com.

On the wires:

• Cardtronics Enlists Lexcel for Payment Network Testing
• Ethoca Partners with NCFTA, Launches FraudStop Service

On the web:

• Wall Street Journal: Google Pursues Role in Mobile Payments
• Portals and Rails: The nitty gritty of money transfer operators (MTOs)
• Mobile Commerce Daily: Mobile commerce and shopping experiencing phenomenal growth rates
• Wall Street Journal: Is Your Charity Chiseling You?
• paidContent: The NYT Pay Plan’s Most Dangerous Foe: Perception
• ETA Blog: Merchants Still Far From PCI Compliant
• China Daily: UnionPay network works well, competition not needed
• LINC New York: Innovations in Payment and Marketing in Web, Mobile and Social Networking