On the web:

• Visa CEO: Bulk Of Durbin Impact On Profits Comes In Fiscal 2012 - Forbes
• As Plastic Reigns, the Treasury Slows Its Printing Presses - New York Times
• With Top Banks In Tow, Financial Service Provider Yodlee Hits 30 Million Users - TechCrunch
• Facebook’s Virtual Currency Draws Antitrust Complaints From Consumer Advocates - The Washington Post

On the wires:

• MOBIbucks Secures $5 Million in Series A Financing
• Facebook Tweaks Terms for Using Its Virtual Money After Antitrust Complaint
• Diners Club and Russian Standard Bank Partner to Form New Franchise in Russia
• Wawa and Wright Express Team Up to Offer Proprietary and Universal Card Program

On the wires:

• Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank and Mobibucks Launch Mobile Payment Service in UAE
• SecuTrans Selects Hypercom’s Optimum Systems for EMV Support in Canada
• Turkcell and Garanti Bank Team Up on Mobile-Based Cep-T ParaCard in Turkey
• Point Acquires Paybox Services in France (PDF)

On the web:

• Mobile Commerce Daily: Barclays Sets Eyes on U.S. Mobile Payments Market
• Fast Company: Another Thing NFC Could Change Forever: Product Warranties

In an article titled "Mobile payment systems gain traction", Brandon Bailey writes for the San Jose Mercury News about Bling Nation, MobiBucks and Obopay's approaches to mobile payments. Bailey quotes Bling Nation's Meyer Malka: "We're not going to bet on the technology. We're betting on the gesture," he said, tapping his phone.

See also this article: "Decoding the Mobile Ad Space" in MediaWeek. "PayPal, which is building its mobile payments network, knows what it is willing to pay to acquire an active mobile customer," writes author Jason Spero.

And, this article from the Sunday New York Times Week in Review section: Where a Cellphone Is Still Cutting Edge by Anand Giridharadas. "America’s innovators, building for an ever-expanding bandwidth network, are spiraling toward fancier, costlier, more network-hungry and status-giving devices; meanwhile, their counterparts in developing nations are innovating to find ever more uses for cheap, basic cellphones." Obopay is mentioned.

Interested in learning more about mobile payments in the US and Canada? See Musings on Mobile Payments by Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson - $19.95 immediate ebook delivery.

We met recently with Jorge Fernandes, co-founder, president and CEO of MobiBucks, a Santa Clara, California-based mobile payments startup. Jorge earlier was the founding CEO of ViVOtech, one of the leading companies in the contactless payments market. Since leaving ViVOtech about two years ago, he has been focused on enabling mobile payments - more specifically, enabling easy mobile payments. We first covered MobiBucks here on Payments News back in April.

Mark Schwanhausser reports about MobiBucks for the San Jose Mercury News. MobiBucks, a Mountain View, CA-based mobile payments startup, was founded by serial entrepreneur Jorge Fernandes who "dreams of building [MobiBucks] into the PayPal of cell-phone commerce." Schwanhausser reports that "with MobiBucks, consumers can pay for items by keying in their cell phone number and PIN at the register. And they can do it today, without having to buy a cell phone equipped with a special chip." [Ed. note: Payments News first reported on MobiBucks back in April 2007. The MobiBucks web site is here.]

MonVia, a specialty firm that helps accelerate the growth of early stage start-ups, has announced the launch of MobiBucks, a new mobile payment solution. According to MobiBucks, "with just a cell phone number and four-digit Personal Identification Number (PIN), consumers can now easily make free and secure cashless transactions on everyday purchases." MobiBucks was founded by Jorge Fernandes, founder and former CEO of ViVOtech, and Dave Barram, a Senior Silicon Valley Executive at Apple, Silicon Graphics and Hewlett-Packard.