Green Dot has announced GoBank, "the first bank account designed from scratch to be opened and used on a mobile device. Launching in limited release, with general availability to come later this year, GoBank is fast, fair and feature-rich, allowing consumers to interact with their money in a way that’s immediate, intuitive and intimate. In addition to GoBank’s consumer-friendly pricing model of no overdraft fees or penalty fees and no minimum balance requirements, GoBank makes it easy to send and deposit money, build a budget and find an ATM, with a massive network of more than 40,000 fee-free ATMs." And don't forget the FDIC insurance.

Website is located at http://www.gobank.com/.

The UK Payments Council has announced that the countdown has started for the launch of a new country-wide mobile P2P payments service in the UK. Specifics include:

• Financial institutions representing 90% of UK current accounts commit to spring 2014 launch of first industry-wide mobile payment service.
• Sending security-protected payments by mobile will be as easy as texting, without the need to disclose account details.
• Customers will be able to send and receive payments straight from their account after simple sign-up process with their provider.

The new mobile payments service will move money directly between accounts using the Faster Payments service and the LINK network.

Terri Bradford of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City has recently published an Payments System Research Brief entitled, "Where Social Networks, Payments and Banking Intersect".

This article reviews the extent of social network adoption, describes ways in which commerce and banking services are arising, discusses payment methods, and highlights some of the potential risks of these various interactions.

The full article is downloadable here.

NCR and PayPal announced an agreement to integrate NCR’s innovative mobile solutions for hospitality and retail with PayPal’s leading digital payment technology. NCR and PayPal will:

• Integrate PayPal mobile payment options into the recently announced NCR Mobile Pay application and NCR Aloha Online Ordering.
• Integrate PayPal mobile payment options into NCR’s Convenience-Go (C-Go) application for petroleum and convenience stores.
• Integrate NCR’s Advanced Marketing Solution (AMS) loyalty and offer management system with the PayPal digital wallet.

NCR’s customer base includes 8 of the 10 fastest-growing Quick Service Restaurants (QSR) and fast casual restaurant chains, 1.2 million retail POS systems and more than 100,000 self-checkout units. PayPal’s global customer base includes 117 million accounts, and has forecasted it will process $10 billion in mobile payment volume in 2012.

On the web:

• MCX Is A Mobile Payment Platform For Retailers, By Retailers - NRF Retail's BIG Blog
• VeriFone Introduces Payment Solution For iPad Mini - MobilePaymentsToday.com

On the wires:

• SpeechStorm Makes IVR Payments Easier (PCI Compliant) in Europe
• TSYS Technology to Help Achieve Financial Inclusion in India
• MasterCard and Equity Bank to Introduce PayPass Enabled Cards in Five African Markets
• Ingenico partners with Microsoft to Drive Retail Innovation
• NCR Launches Mobile Point-of-Sale Optimization Practice