Cartera Commerce and Barclaycard US have announced a strategic partnership to reward Barclaycard customers for their shopping purchases.

“The pressure for card issuers to deliver more value to their customers has never been greater. We’re delighted to partner with Barclaycard to help proactively meet this challenge by making it easy for Barclaycard customers to earn rewards faster with card-linked offers,” commented Tom Beecher, President and CEO of Cartera Commerce. “When Barclaycard customers realize they can now earn merchandise or a dream trip faster than before by shopping with participating merchants, their loyalty credit card moves to top of wallet.”

Kabbage has announced it has secured $17 million in Series B funding, led by Mohr Davidow Ventures.

"Thousands of online merchants have obtained working capital and grown their businesses since our push into the market in April 2011," said Rob Frohwein, Kabbage Founder and CEO. "Although small business fuels the majority of growth in the U.S., it is extremely difficult and time consuming for these businesses to apply for and actually receive financing from a traditional bank."

Separately, the company also announced it has been issued a patent that "covers a system by which a provider of capital utilizes information regarding a merchant’s sales history on an e-commerce website to make a determination about providing funds."

Telefónica Germany, Telekom and Vodafone have announced they will "register their payment service 'mpass' as its own company, and have signed a letter of understanding to this effect. The new company is due to begin operating as early as this year."

Dr. Peter Walz, Member of the Management Board and Director of Wholesale & Strategy at Vodafone Deutschland: 'For many years now we have offered an interoperable payment product across all networks with payments via the phone bill. This is now being continued in the shared mpass activities. Retailers want standardised solutions and that is what we are giving them with mpass.'

The new initiative will move mpass transactions from the online payments world to NFC-enabled offline POS world.

USA Technologies has announced that "based on its July 2011 survey of over 10,000 traditional vending machines utilizing its ePort cashless payment system, consumers, on average, spent one-third more when making a cashless purchase than a cash purchase. In addition, cashless purchases made up approximately 26% of all sales at these vending machines."

The "Jonathan's Card" experiment was born of research on mobile payment solutions by Jonathan Stark, Mobiquity's Vice President of Application Architecture, according to a recent company announcement.

Stark developed the concept for his social giving experiment in "broadcasting mobile currency" as part of research he was conducting for a Mobiquity client. Stark first blogged about his experiment on July 14, where he described his surprise in discovering he could purchase a coffee simply by taking a screenshot of his Starbucks card barcode via his iPhone and emailing it to himself to use on his Nexus S Android phone. From the start of the experiment through its conclusion on August 12, individuals contributed upwards of $10,000 to the card's balance in the spirit of "paying it forward" and brightening a stranger's day with a free coffee.

Jonathan blogs about the experiment here.

TransUnion has announced availability of its quarterly analyses of credit-active U.S. consumers finding that the "national credit card delinquency rate (the rate of borrowers 90 or more days past due) decreased for the sixth consecutive quarter, dropping to 0.6% at the end of the second quarter in 2011. This is the lowest mark observed in 17 years. Credit card debt per borrower increased $20 in the quarter to $4,699, though it remains near record-low levels."

On the web:

• Wells Fargo to Begin Charging Debit Card Fees - MyBankTracker.com
• M-payments are Vodafone's Biggest Business in Kenya - Rethink Wireless
• How a Google-Motorola Combo Could Be ‘Good News’ for NFC in the U.S. - Digital Transactions
• NYC Testing Mobile Payments for Parking Meter - PCMag.com

On the wires:

• TransUnion "Pulse Poll" Reveals Untapped Opportunity in Hospital Point-of-Service Collections
• peerTransfer Raises $7.5 Million to Help Streamline Edu Payments for International Students
• Jwaala and eWise Partner to Offer Secure Vault Payments to Members of MACU
• Cielo Deploys Nationwide Secure Payments Network with NewNet in Brazil
• Vindicia Launches New Marketing Capabilities for CashBox Billing Solution
• Mojang Partners With Skrill to Extend International Payment Options