Javien has announced that Javien Micropay now helps merchants meet Visa’s new guidelines for online micropayment transactions of Visa credit, debit or prepaid cards. Additionally, Javien says Micropay provides an auditable, provable method of managing online micropayment aggregations that conforms to Visa’s new rules.   » Continue Reading

In an article titled 'Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business', Chris Anderson writes for Wired Magazine about how more and more things are trending toward free. Here's his view about why micropayments failed: 'The huge psychological gap between 'almost zero' and 'zero' is why micropayments failed. It's why Google doesn't show up on your credit card. It's why modern Web companies don't charge their users anything. And it's why Yahoo gives away disk drive space. The question of infinite storage was not if but when. The winners made their stuff free first.'

TechCrunch's Mark Hendrickson writes about Noca, a Redwood City, CA-based startup that "is attempting to virtually eliminate transaction fees by bypassing the credit card companies altogether with its own online payment service." Noca's mission statement says it is "building a new online payment system to provide significantly reduced transaction processing rates for online shopping enabling efficient processing of micro-transactions for digital goods."

In an article titled 'In Online World, Pocket Change Is Not Easily Spent", Dan Mitchell writes for the New York Times about micropayments - noting that successful approaches seem to based upon aggregation of transactions, helping to reduce the payment system costs by consolidating multiple small purchases into a single, larger purchase amount transaction. Earlier efforts that involved prepaid-like characteristics (with consumers pre-funding an account) have failed.

Elizabeth Olson writes for the New York Times about the increasing use of payment cards for small ticket purchases. She writes "more consumers — especially younger ones — are shunning cash and paper checks almost entirely."

Charles Hudson writes: "I'm organizing a one day conference on virtual goods and virtual economies at Stanford this summer and I thought your readers might have an interest in attending the event - we have a few sessions focused on payments/economics and the role that real world payment vehicles could play in the development of this space." Details here on the Virtual Goods Summit 2007.

Mercator Advisory Group has announced its latest report, Solving the Micropayment Problem, Online and at the Point of Sale, that reviews "both the history and challenges of electronic micropayments and examines how the existing rails have evolved to address under $5 electronic payments at both the point of sale and for online transactions."   » Continue Reading

TowerGroup has issued a research note titled "Micropayments: Turning Nickels and Dimes into Profits" that "illustrates how card use for micropayments reinforces and can deepen issuers' relationships with their customers, thereby indirectly enhancing profitability. Customer retention is directly linked to product usage. Ideally, frequent use of cards for small everyday transactions will lead consumers to use the cards for larger and more profitable transactions."

CNN is carrying a Dow Jones Newswire story this morning reporting from Davos on a discussion with Bill Gates about Microsoft developing on an online payment system that will be cheaper than credit card transactions.

Bitpass has begun notifying its merchant and consumer customers via email that "due to circumstances beyond our control, we are discontinuing our operations. We have partnered with Digital River to provide operational support during the period prior to shut down. As of today, January 19, 2007, all Bitpass Buyers with US dollar denominated accounts are being notified that they will have seven (7) days to spend any amounts that currently exist in their Bitpass Account." Alas, Clay Shirky was right. Bitpass, RIP.

ClickandBuy has announced that "three independent online music stores have selected its international digital payments platform for its hosted digital commerce system and its ability to provide different types of payment methods, including yearly subscriptions, micropayments or single downloads of songs."   » Continue Reading

On the Apple Matters blog, James Stoup writes about the new Microsoft Zune Marketplace - where you can't just buy songs with a credit card. Instead, you first have to buy Microsoft Points - using your credit card. Then, you can use the Points stored in your account to buy music. He says "in effect, Microsoft has created a store that only accepts gift cards as the valid method of payments."

Peppercoin has announced that the 4th Annual Micro and Small Payments Conference will be held November 28 at New York City's Marriott Financial Center. The conference's theme is "Transforming Transactions" and growing the small payments markets. Niki Manby, senior vice president of product innovation at Visa USA, and Robert Carr, chairman and CEO of Heartland Payment Systems, will keynote.   » Continue Reading

Carl Howe blogs for Seeking Alpha about the "new Microsoft cash system" called Microsoft Points originally rolled out with the Xbox Live Marketplace and to be used for making online music purchases for Microsoft's new Zune music player.

Visa USA has announced that leading U.S. merchants continue to adopt the Visa No Signature Required Program, which waives the signature requirement for qualifying Visa transactions less than $25 across 17 merchant categories using existing magnetic stripe POS card acceptance terminals. The program, launched in April 2006, is designed to accelerate Visa acceptance and card usage at traditionally cash-intensive merchants. According to Visa, 7-Eleven, Inc., Clearview Cinemas, Dairy Queen, Domino’s Pizza, and Sonic Drive-In are among the newest merchants now participating in the program. Visa estimates indicate that by the end of 2006 as much as 27 percent of all Visa transactions may qualify for Visa's No Signature Required Program.   » Continue Reading

Duncan Solutions and Peppercoin have announced a strategic partnership to "offer innovative, integrated solutions that grow parking revenues by increasing the profitability of credit and debit card transactions and deliver greater conveniences to motorists." The companies, who already work together in a number of cities, including Las Vegas and Oklahoma City, are enhancing their relationship with additional technology integration and coordinated sales efforts.   » Continue Reading

T-Online Venture Fund has announced it has made a 10% investment in Zug, Switzerland-based FIRSTGATE Holding AG, owner of Click&Buy.   » Continue Reading

Executives from Chase, Peppercoin, TYS, and Visa plan to hold a Small Payments Webinar on July 19th. Moderated by Jeff Green of Card & Payments Magazine, the session will cover contactless payments, card acceptance in the everyday spending market, and emerging loyalty requirements. Jeff Gordan, an Arby's Roast Beef franchise operator, will provide the merchant perspective. Peppercoin will also be unveiling new Ipsos-Insight data on the growth and obstacles facing the contactless payments adoption, as well as which markets have the greatest potential.

Are you a payments professional living in the San Francisco Bay Area? The next meeting of BayPay, the payments professionals' networking group for the San Francisco area is being held this Thursday, June 29, beginning at 6 PM in Mountain View. This meeting's topic is small/micro payments - speakers are Mark Friedman, CEO of Peppercoin and Doug Knopper, CEO of Bitpass. There's ample time alloted at each meeting for networking with other local payments professionals. If you're not already a BayPay member and are interested in attending this Thursday's meeting, please contact us for more information and details about meeting location, etc.

James C. McGrath of the Payments Cards Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia has published a new discussion paper titled "Micropayments: The Final Frontier For Consumer Payments" (pdf). The paper concludes that,"despite some structural limitations, the existing payment card infrastructure and related products are likely to be the primary vehicles for electronifying micropayments in the U.S. in coming years."   » Continue Reading

Peppercoin has announced a loyalty program for small payments both online and at the physical point-of-sale. Peppercoin says its new program is "the first to allow merchants to attract and retain customers buying small dollar-value items and services -- such as a cup of coffee or a music file download -- without requiring a separate pre-enrollment process or additional card."   » Continue Reading

BitPass has announced an agreement with Entercom, one of the five largest radio broadcasting companies in the US, to enable subscription access to online broadcast content.   » Continue Reading

Over on the TextPayMe blog, the founders share why they really started this new mobile payments company:

"We wanted to split dinnertime bills easily and fairly."

Digital Media Wire is hosting a 1-day executive forum for companies addressing the digital entertainment space on Tuesday, January 31 in New York City.   » Continue Reading

3i has announced a $23 million investment in Zurich (Switzerland) based Webpay AG, owner of Click & Buy, an ePayment and storefront provider for online and mobile digital content.   » Continue Reading

Ezra Roizen writes for AlwaysOn about BitPass and new CEO Doug Knopper.   » Continue Reading

The Smart Card Alliance has released a new white paper: Smart Cards and Parking: A Smart Card Alliance Transportation Council White Paper.   » Continue Reading

BitPass has announced it has acquired substantially all the assets of Yaga, Inc., a developer of payment and accounting solutions for content providers.   » Continue Reading

Shankar Gupta reports for Online Media Daily this morning that Google appears to be planning to charge pay-per-view for some videos on its Google Video site.

Speculation surrounding the pay-per-view model suggested that the Google online payments system, Google Wallet, would be used by both downloaders and uploaders to send and receive micropayments for video content.

Forbes' Seth Lubove examines the opportunities for micropayments in 2006 including mentions of BitPass and Peppercoin.

Technorati Tags: BitPass, Peppercoin, Micropayments

MasterCard and Peppercoin have announced signing a Letter of Intent towards forming an alliance to accelerate card usage for small payments at the physical point of sale and online.   » Continue Reading

Ipsos Insight and Peppercoin have announced the results of a recent survey that found consumers' desire to use credit and debit cards for small payments and micropayments at the point of sale and online is on the rise. An estimated 45 million Americans are willing to use credit or debit cards for purchases of $5 or less, up 23 percent from September 2004.   » Continue Reading

BitPass has announced an agreement with MSN to enable digital content sales on targeted international MSN portals. As part of the relationship, BitPass will work with MSN to provide co-branded payment services and a marketplace to MSN consumers, enabling a consistent and convenient buying experience.   » Continue Reading

Peppercoin has announced the completion of a $10 million second institutional round of funding with an additional $2 million investment from Total Technology Ventures. The round was led by venture capital firm Wall Street Technology Partners and includes previous investor Pod Holding and a large, Boston-based institutional investment adviser and several private individuals.   » Continue Reading

Robin Sidel reports for the Wall St. Journal on how credit card issuers are now pursuing the market for smaller payments less than $5.

Many small transactions still are cash-based, making card companies salivate at the prospect of turning those payments into plastic. The market for transactions valued at less than $5 accounted for $1.32 trillion in consumer spending in 2003, representing more than 400 billion transactions, according to research by TowerGroup, a unit of MasterCard International Inc. By comparison, Visa processes a total of about $2 trillion of global transactions each year.

Dan Ilett reports for Silicon.com on Gartner's report on PayPal's micropayments pricing written by Avivah Litan that we reported on last week.

Banks and vendors should sell PayPal payments to retail customers, instead of trying to compete with the online company, an analyst has claimed.

Evan Schuman writes for Ziff Davis Internet on PayPal's recent modification to its pricing for micropayments - defined as purchases typically less than $2.

So says Gartner's Avivah Litan in a new research note.

PayPal’s expansion is bad news for countless startups around the world that have tried to enter the micropayment market. Although credit/debit card companies could enter this market simply by lowering merchant transaction fees, these companies don’t have the PayPal advantage of funding payments from PayPal stored accounts, as well as traditional bank accounts.

Accenture has published a study on the use of smart card technology in public transportation (PDF).

Smart cards are the ticket to the future for most of the world’s transit operators. According to Accenture’s global research, some implementations have been successful, and many have achieved their original objectives. But smart card implementation was viewed by many respondents as being more complicated than originally anticipated: many viewed e-ticketing solely as a means of systems imple- mentation. This limited view increases the risk of a difficult implementation and limits the ultimate benefit to passengers.

A paper on second generation micropayment systems (PDF) has been published by R. Párhonyi, L.J.M. Nieuwenhuis, and A. Pras of the University of Twente in the Netherlands.   » Continue Reading

Peppercoin has announced that it has secured $8 million in additional funding from venture capital firm Wall Street Technology Partners and previous investor Pod Holding. Peppercoin also announced that Mark Friedman has been named president and chief executive officer.   » Continue Reading

Dina ElBoghdady writes in the Washington Post about the use of card payments for low value purchases.

Peppercoin has announced an agreement with SunTrust Merchant Services to offer Peppercoin's small paymnet processing system to its merchants.   » Continue Reading

Peppercoin has announced that it has been selected by Mashbox to enable the sale of low-priced music profitably.   » Continue Reading

Peppercoin this morning announced version 3.0 of its Small Transaction Suite, designed to allow merchants to more cost effectively accept small payments.   » Continue Reading

Peppercoin and Chase Merchant Services have announced entering into a referral agreement.   » Continue Reading

Shannon Henry reports in the Washington Post on a recent roundtable discussion titled "What's Next in Wireless?"

The panelists agreed that one of the most interesting and potentially lucrative wireless niches will be "micropayments," finding ways to use a cell phone to pay small amounts, such as $1 or $2, for a new ring tone or a game. "That's a gigantic opportunity," said Mark Ein, founder of District-based venture capital firm Venturehouse Group.

Apple and PayPal announced today that Apple's iTunes Music Store will now accept PayPal for purchases. The first 500,000 customers to open a new iTunes account in the US using PayPal as their form of payment before March 31, 2005, will receive five free songs.

"We are thrilled that PayPal users can now buy their music on the world's number one online music store," said Todd Pearson, general manager of PayPal's Merchant Services. "PayPal's virtual wallet offers iTunes customers the convenience of paying in the way they prefer."

Jennifer LeClaire reports in Ecommerce Times on the potential for microcommerce.

Much attention has been focused on the promise of enabling large business-to-business transaction over the Internet -- and many corporations can testify to the Web's transforming power to streamlin inventory management. However, there's a new revolution coming online, and it's called microcommerce.

Peppercoin has announced Mark Friedman as President. Friedman had been VP of sales and Market Development. Robert Kiburz will remain with the company as Chairman of the Board.

Denver's Rocky Mountain News takes a look at micropayments.   » Continue Reading

Gartner reports that it believes microcommerce opportunities will generate an estimated $60 billion in revenue per year by 2015 -- using the definition that a micropurchase is a purchase conducted electronically that is valued at less than $5 and where the settlement can be either prepaid, by subscription, on-the-spot, of invoiced.   » Continue Reading

The Boston Business Journal reports that Peppercoin is partnering with Reino Parking Systems to support credit card transactions at Reino's Multispace parking meters.

Wireless Developer Network reports on a roundtable held in London recently that explored the impact that mobile payments will have on established payment methods including cards.

Instead of replacing the credit card, mobile payments will evolve in two directions: managing transactions for small digital purchases and, in the long term, being integrated with credit cards so that phone users can trigger a larger credit card purchase from their phone. In this way mobile payments will complement, not replace the credit card model.

Peppercoin and Moneris Solutions have announced a strategic alliance to make Peppercoin's 2.0 service available to merchants by the end of the year.   » Continue Reading

iBill and DuoCash have announced a joint marketing agreement that allows iBill's online merchants to accept prepaid phone cards as an alternative to credit cards for payment.   » Continue Reading

NPR's Rick Karr examines paying for music in the Internet age -- including a look at online micropayments.

Dan Fost reports in the San Francisco Chronicle on the micropayments market including the latest round of funding received by BitPass as well as some of the other companies pursuing the micropayments market.

Matt Hines reports for CNET News.com on the resurgence of micropayments.

Separately, BitPass has announced that it has raised $11.75 million in Series B financing from Worldview Technology Partners, Steamboat Ventures (the venture capital arm of the The Walt Disney Company), RRE Ventures and others. James Robinson III, former Chairman and CEO of the American Express Company and a General Partner at RRE Ventures, will join BitPass' Board of Directors along with Peter Goettner, Venture Partner, Worldview, and John R. Ball, Managing Director, Steamboat.

The Tower Group has announced new research looking at the opportunities for mobile, Internet, and POS micropayment (less than $5) transactions including forecasting a market size of $11.5 billion in the US by 2009.   » Continue Reading

Jozef Purdes writes in DIY Games on the potential use of micropayments in online games.

Peppercoin and Ipsos-Insight have published the results of a consumer survey focusing on online purchases of digital content by U.S. consumers.   » Continue Reading

Slashdot picks up the discussion on Peppercoin 2.0.

Micropayment provider Peppercoin has announced version 2.0 of its small payment service including support for small value transactions at the physical point of sale.

Dawn Chmielewski reports in the San Jose Mercury News on Mperia, an online music portal for independent musicians where payments are handled by micropayments provider BitPass.

The Technology Report in this morning's Wall St. Journal (subscription reqd) includes "A Dollar Here, A Dollar There...", a report on micropayments.

Amanda Kooser reports in Entrepreneur on the uptick in Silicon Valley and, in particular, on BitPass as an example.

BitPass has announced Michael O'Donnell as CEO. O'Donnell was formerly CEO and President of Salon Media Group. Founding BitPass CEO Kurt Huang is becoming Chief Product Officer.

James Maguire writes in Internet.com about micropayments.

nPost.com has posted an interview with Kurt Huang, CEO of micropayment provider BitPass.

Gregory Lamb writes in the Christian Science Monitor about micropayments.

Gwenn Bézard, Senior Analyst at Celent Communications, reports in Bank Systems & Technology on the flurry of recent micropayment activity.

Micropayment provider BitPass has announced the beta launch of Mperia, a new online music store for independent musicians.   » Continue Reading

Palo Alto Weekly reporter Elizabeth White writes about Palo Alto-based micropayment provider BitPass.   » Continue Reading

Journalism.co.uk reports on increased consumer response to paid digital content.

"Consumers are not afraid to pay for things - they do it everyday," said Mr Law. "Those of you sitting on the side lines - don't intellectualise about it. Just dive in and do something!"

Elizabeth Millard reports in Ecommerce Times on micropayments.

In other micropayments news, Peppercoin has announced a deal with Smithsonian Folkways to make its entire collection of 33,000 American folk songs available online to consumers for 99 cents per song.

The Green Sheet reports on micropayments.

The concept of online 'micropayments' for small-amount online purchases is not new, but is once again gaining a real foothold in the world of e-commerce. The difference now is that a handful of micropayment providers are using the existing payment infrastructure (i.e. debit and credit cards) to process the tiny transactions.

Anne Eisenberg reports in the New York Times on micropayments.

Todd Pearson, the managing director for merchant services at PayPal, an eBay subsidiary in Mountain View, Calif., that is the principal peer-to-peer system for paying online, said the time for micropayments had finally arrived. "We think the stars are coming into alignment on this at last," he said.

Meanwhile, the staff of the Boston Globe goes shopping using BitPass, Peppercoin, and PayLoadz.

Ryan Naraine reports on trends to watch in 2004 from the editors of InternetNews.com and JupiterMedia -- including micropayments.

Sun Microsystems CTO Greg Papadopoulos forecasts growth in micropayments on the Internet.

Micropayments could also hasten the arrival of Web services that interact with one another -- say, a calendar, map and traffic-monitoring service working together to automatically guide you to your next appointment via the shortest or least congested route -- with each collecting a small per-use fee.

Micropayments, along with marked improvements in network-identity management (a federated system that could make single sign-on a reality in 2004), mean that IT managers need to be thinking about new kinds of services their companies will be able to profit from, using all the latest advances.

Analisa Nazareno reports in the San Antonio Express-News on micropayments discussions at the recent Future of Money Summit.

Eugene Wee writes in the Sunday Straits Times from Singapore about micropayments.

Today, the micropayment model is making a comeback, with big guns like Apple leading the charge. While its iTunes Music Store, which sells digital music for 99 US cents (S$1.70) a song, uses credit card transactions and does not really leverage on new micropayment technology per se, it has shown that people are willing to buy low-cost digital content.

Vin Crosbie summarizes the steps to migrating from a free website to one that charges for content based upon the experiences of Donn Friedman, assistant managing editor for production technology and new media innovations at the Albuquerque Journal.

BitPass this morning announced the general availability of its micropayment system.   » Continue Reading

BitPass, a content and services payments company we've been helping, soft launched their new service last night.   » Continue Reading