« October 9, 2011 - October 15, 2011 | Main | October 23, 2011 - October 29, 2011 »
Over on our sister blog, Payments Views, Glenbrook's Russ Jones has shared his thoughts on how the Siri "personal assistant" on the iPhone 4S might someday be payment-enabled.
Our particular interest in Siri here at Glenbrook is how this (or other) intelligent voice-aware agents might be enabled at some point to truly streamline how we buy stuff online. We think of it as “conversational commerce”.
The full post is available here.
On the web:
On the wires:
Note: Headline News is compiled by Glenbrook Partners. Throughout the day, as we spot interesting developments, this post is updated.
PayPal's parent eBay announced financial results for 3Q2011.
PayPal ended the quarter with 103.0 million active registered accounts, a 14% increase year over year. PayPal revenue increased 32% year over year driven primarily by increased penetration on eBay as well as continued merchant and consumer adoption. PayPal's net total payment volume (TPV) grew 31% to $29.3 billion in the third quarter of 2011 compared to the same period of last year. PayPal continues to invest in innovation, focusing on the core platform, as well as mobile and point of sale initiatives. PayPal expects to generate more than $3.5 billion in mobile TPV in 2011, up from $750 million in 2010.
eBay reported that the PayPal 'take rate' increased to 3.78%. TechCrunch has a nice summary of John Donahoe's comments on their point of sale initiative.
American Express has reported financial results for the third quarter 2011. Net income was $1.2 billion, up 13% from $1.1 billion a year ago. Kenneth I. Chenault, chairman and chief executive officer, commented:
Cardmember spending was strong during the period, growing 16 percent to record levels and again outpacing most of the major bank card issuers. Credit quality continued to be excellent, with key lending metrics improving from the historically strong levels we achieved earlier in the year. The growth in operating expenses moderated this quarter, as planned, and we expect to further slow that growth towards the end of this year and into next.
On the web:
On the wires:
Note: Headline News is compiled by Glenbrook Partners. Throughout the day, as we spot interesting developments, this post is updated.
Citigroup has announced that its Global Transaction Services unit is expanding its premier cross-border payment solution, WorldLink® Payment Services (WorldLink), into eight new countries for local payments.
This expansion sees the traditional Automated Clearing House (ACH) offering increase from 21 countries, primarily in Europe, to 29 countries spanning Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas.
Travelex Global Business Payments has announced the acquisition of Pay 24-7, "online payments technology used by leading universities and higher education institutions in the UK, North America, Europe and Asia. The online payments technology is specifically designed to reduce the banking and the administrative cost associated with collecting fees from overseas students and enables a speedier payments process for both the student and university."
Paymentwall has announced the launch of MobilePay+, which combines thirteen bill to mobile providers into one meta platform.
Honor Gunday, CEO of Paymentwall comments: “There’s a lot of competition in mobile payments, and many mobile providers are strong in specific regions and are constantly expanding coverage, but to achieve full global coverage, today, we combined 13 mobile payment solutions in 1.”
The payment providers included in the MobilePay+ are Allopass, Atlas Interactive, Boku, BoxPay, DaoPay, Fortumo, ImpulsePay, MikroOdeme, Mobile First, Mopay, Smart Philippines, SMSCoin/Aggregator, and Zong.
Heartland Payment Systems has released the state-specific data about the legislation’s actual effects on business owners in various states across the country.
“Merchants are wondering how the percentage of regulated versus non-regulated transactions in their states would impact their savings, and this data provides insight into exactly that,” said Bob Baldwin, Heartland’s president. “By providing business owners a frame of reference for how much money, on average, their peers across their state are saving from Durbin, they have an idea of what their own savings may be."
Bank of America has reported financial results for the third quarter 2011.
Card Services reported net income of $1.3 billion, compared to a loss of $9.8 billion in the year-ago quarter. The improvement in net income reflected the impact of a $10.4 billion goodwill impairment charge in the third quarter of 2010 and lower credit costs in the current period, partially offset by lower revenue. Excluding the impairment charge, net income was up $708 million from the third quarter of 2010.
The number of new U.S. credit card accounts grew by 17 percent in the third quarter of 2011 compared to the second quarter of 2011.
On the web:
On the wires:
Note: Headline News is compiled by Glenbrook Partners. Throughout the day, as we spot interesting developments, this post is updated.
Over on our sister blog, Payments Views, Glenbrook's Russ Jones shares his thoughts on PayPal's vision for taking its momentum in online payments to the point of sale in the offline world –– PayPal Thinks Big Offline: Exploring PayPal’s Seamless Shopping Vision.
It is interesting that PayPal is focused on optimizing the shopping experience, and not just the payment experience. As many people have pointed out, it’s not only how long it takes to swipe your payment card at BestBuy –– it’s how long you have to wait in line for that privilege.
On the web:
On the wires:
Note: Headline News is compiled by Glenbrook Partners. Throughout the day, as we spot interesting developments, this post is updated.
Contacts:
Compilation Copyright © 2002 - 2013 Glenbrook Partners LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Terms of Use Privacy Policy RSS Feed 
Follow Payments News on Twitter for Real-Time Updates
