On the web:

• NFC vs. Cloud-based Payments: Which Will Reach Scale First? - Mobile Commerce Daily
• Could Google Wallet be Google's Next Failure? - CNET

On the wires:

• Paytoo Mobile Wallet Brings the Fiesta to Mexico
• Century Bank Partners with Invoice Cloud to Offer Customers e-Billing Technology
• MetraTech's Metanga to Monetize Cloud Banking Application for Temenos
• WePay Rang in 2012 With Over One Payment Per Minute

appMobi has announced public beta availability of playMobi, a cross-platform HTML5-based game development, deployment, and monetization SDK.

playMobi enables cross-platform in-app purchasing with its 1Touch in-app payment system. When a player makes a purchase, playMobi automatically completes the transaction using the correct in-app-purchase backend system, based on the device in use. When running on iOS, playMobi uses iTunes; on Android, Google Payments; on Facebook, Facebook Credits; and on the Open Web, PayPal.

More information is available from the appMobie website, www.appmobi.com.

Visa announced that it has extended its issuer processing platform, Visa DPS, to offer mobile services that are fully managed by Visa and can be accessed with any mobile device, any mobile channel, and with any eligible debit, credit or prepaid account.

“The services offered by Visa DPS are a one-stop solution for Visa clients who want to serve their customers through the mobile channel without making significant investments in hardware, software or mobile expertise,” said John Partridge, President, Visa Inc. “Through our ongoing investments in Visa DPS, our clients can not only take advantage of Visa’s scale and expertise in payments processing, but also have the opportunity to easily implement Visa’s extensive roadmap of mobile innovations – from mobile banking, to NFC payments, and to our digital wallet, V.me.”

On the web:

• Girl Scouts Adds Mobile Payments to Drive Cookie Sales - Mobile Commerce Daily
• German P2P Lender Auxmoney Sees Growth - Peer to Peer Lending News
• Here’s How PayPal Is Pitching Mobile Payments to Major Retailers (Slideshow) - AllThingsD
• Facebook Teams up With Bango for Mobile Payments - PCWorld

On the wires:

• Plastic Jungle and InComm Announce Strategic Gift Card Partnership
• Ceridian Introduces Virtual Terminal Enabling Web-based Transactions
• New Aite Group Report on Big Four U.S. Payment Card Networks
• Heartland Handles Nearly 44,000 Transactions as Official Concessions Processor of Super Bowl
• Computop Paygate 5.0 To Expand Support for International Payments

Mozido announced the launch of the 'Genius Wallet', a global mobile wallet platform for the unbanked and banked.

"Our Genius Wallet(SM) brings every mobile phone user, including the unbanked, into a secure, convenient, and efficient financial ecosystem," says Greg Corona, CEO, Mozido LLC "It offers opportunity and hope for a huge population worldwide, empowering them to enjoy a broad range of banking and financial services often for the first time, using their mobile phone."

In December, Mozido and MoneyGram struck a partnership to include MoneyGram remittance transfer services for approved Mozido mobile wallet applications.

On the web:

• BC Global Looms as Alternative to Visa For Korean Buyers - Korea Times
• Dwolla Raises $5m Series B Round led by Union Square Ventures (Video) - Silicon Prairie News
• Accel, SV Angel, Y Combinator Put $1.5M In Online Bank Payments Platform GoCardless - TechCrunch

On the wires:

• Text2Pay Mobile Payments Wizard - Easy as 1 2 3!
• mopay and paymentez Forge Strategic Mobile Payments Partnership
• The Perfect Pairing: Wine Enthusiast Uncorks eGift Card Program
• CoVantage Credit Union Deploys Tyfone Mobile Wallet Services to Its Members
• Transcepta Procure-to-Pay Network Selected to Simplify Accounts Payable for Manheim

On the web:

• To Sign Merchants, Square Heads to Campus To Recruit a Sales Force - Digital Transactions
• PayPal Says It's Business as Usual a Month After President Resigns - AllThingsD
• Self-Checkout Footprints Get Smaller For Retail - Point of Sale News
• Citigroup Gets Approval to Issue China Credit Cards - WSJ.com

On the wires:

• Datacard Group Announces an Equity Investment and Strategic Partnership with DeviceFidelity
• INSIDE Secure Chosen by Leading Smartphone Manufacturer
• Navigant Credit Union Selects Acumen from Fiserv

Over on Payments Views, Glenbrook's Scott Loftesness blogs about the new FIS approach to mobile payments:

With much of the card payments industry zigging toward an NFC-based solution securing payment card credentials on mobile handsets, FIS is zagging in a different direction with this new solution – one that doesn’t need to wait for NFC and Secure Element (SE) chips to be embedded in mobile phones.

FIS is the world’s largest global provider of banking and payments technologies, serving 14,000 financial institutions in over 100 countries.

On the web:

• FTC to Review Mobile Payments Impact on U.S. Consumers - NFCNews
• Starbucks Says It's Number One in World in Mobile Payments - AuctionBytes
• Experiments in Virtual Currencies - MarketingVOX

On the wires:

• Simply Market Streamlines eInvoicing Through Ariba’s b-process
• Campus Apartments First to Offer Residents Ability to Pay Rent Through Facebook
• Live Gamer Partners with PaymentOne to Expand International Mobile Payment Options
• GE Capital Retail Bank Announces New Agreement to Provide Credit Card Program for Toys“R”Us
• iovation Stopped 50 Million Online Fraud Attempts in 2011, Biggest International Offender: Ghana
• Citi Launches First Account Analysis Tools for Credit Card Users on the iPad
• T-Mobile To Distribute Square Card Readers to Small Businesses
• Sabre Launches Travel Settlement Services Powered by Conferma
• CyberSource Announces Renewed Agreement With Facebook
• New Mercator Report on Next Generation EFT Networks

Over on Payments Views, Glenbrook's Russ Jones blogs about "Who Knows What In Payments?" and the explores whether or not the targeting of ads and offers can be enhanced with insight from payment transaction data. He also looks at what mobile wallets will know about the consumer's purchase behavior.

LevelUp has announced a new custom hardware line for merchants. Merchants can sign up for LevelUp (for free) and be up and running in minutes. "Open the box, turn on the T-Mobile terminal, plug it in, and you're connected to the LevelUp nationwide payment network. It's that easy."

CorFire and SNAP (Social Network Appreciation Platform) have announced plans to integrate the SNAP platform into CorFire’s mobile wallet solution, CorPay, and its suite of mobile marketing services, Cor360.

The combined solution will provide a one-stop shop to enable QSRs and other retail segments to connect their m-commerce apps to social networks such as Facebook, Foursquare, and Twitter. Consumers are enabled to post pre-defined messages and check in automatically on their social networks each time they use their mobile merchant-branded payment cards, vouchers, and loyalty cards at the POS. Customers are rewarded with gifts, position on leaderboards and timely offers.

On the web:

• Why Mobile Payments Still Haven’t Revolutionized Retail - VentureBeat
• Personal Finance Platform HelloWallet Raises $12M From Morningstar - TechCrunch
• PayPal Formally Open Home Depot "POS" Pilot Program - PayPal Blog

On the wires:

• American Express Launches Social Media Show + Tell
• Green Dot Will Launch AARP Foundation Prepaid MasterCard
• Payment Data Systems Announces "Debit Only" Payment Product Offering
• Euronet to Deploy ATMs in German Airports, Tourist Hubs and Military Base Locations
• SHAZAM Launches Adaptive Payment's Pentagon Mobile Payment Application
• RushCard Announces Plan to Reduce and Simplify Fees, Enhance Customer Benefits and Help Consumers Achieve Financial Freedom
• Green Dot Acquires Prepaid Processing Assets of eCommLink

Skrill, formerly Moneybookers, has announced the "launch of Skrill 1-Tap – a new product connected to Skrill’s digital wallet that brings quick and easy mobile payments to merchants and customers. By implementing Skrill 1-Tap, merchants can offer customers the opportunity to pay for goods in ‘one tap’ on any device, rather than having to re-enter login details or credit card information."

MasterCard has announced that Australia will be the first country to pilot QkR™, a new queue-busting mobile payment application developed by MasterCard that lets movie goers at selected La Premiere Hoyts cinemas order food and drinks directly from their seats by using their smart phone.

The new QkR by MasterCard in-cinema smart ordering service will be piloted by the Commonwealth Bank at a number of Hoyts cinemas for several weeks from January. Guests of Hoyts’ luxurious La Premiere cinemas in Sydney who have an iPhone or Android handset will be able to buy food and drink from the comfort of their cinema seats through an application downloaded to their phone. Purchases are then delivered directly to their seat.

Over on Payments Views, our sister site, Glenbrook's Russ Jones blogs about The First Natural Law of Mobile Payments. Here's a hint.

There are lots of different mobile payment domains, lots of different use cases, and lots of different solutions — but if they don’t involve a mobile device to some degree, we certainly can’t call them mobile payments!

Visa Inc and Visa Europe have jointly announced that NFC-enabled smartphones from Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and Research In Motion (RIM) have been certified for use with Visa’s mobile application for payments at the point-of-sale, Visa payWave.

“This is an important step for Visa, its financial institution partners and the mobile industry,” said Bill Gajda, Global Head of Mobile Product, Visa Inc. “In addition to issuing plastic magnetic stripe or chip-enabled payment cards, financial institutions can now consider offering their accountholders a way to transform their smartphones into fully functional mobile payment devices.”

On the web:

• Starbucks Launches ‘pay by app’ for iPhone Users in UK - Telegraph
• Spindle Plans Mobile Payment Product for Small Banks - American Banker
• Square Expands Retail Partnerships to Include OfficeMax And UPS Store Locations - TechCrunch
• PayAnywhere Lets You Build Payments Acceptance Into An App Of Your Own - Business Insider
• Is what you see what you get? Proposed Pricing Disclosures for Electronic Remittances - Portals and Rails
• State Bank of India Drops Plan for Merchant Acquiring JV with Visa, Elavon - The Times of India
• Top 7 Card Readers For Smartphones: Apple, Android, and Blackberry - Mobile POS News
• The Future of Self-Service Checkout - STORES.org
• The State of ACH Fraud - Bank Info Security

On the wires:

• New Mercator Report on India's Prepaid Card Market
• SunGard Closes Syntesys Acquisition to Offer Expanded SWIFT Connectivity and Services
• Chase Partners with Southwest Airlines to Enhance Ultimate Rewards Travel Options for Cardmembers
• U.S. Bank Implements Secure Vault Payments for Nebraska Online Child Support Payments

Over on Payments Views, Glenbrook's Scott Loftesness takes a look back at payments in 2011.

At Glenbrook, we thrive on thinking about how payments are evolving and how these changes will affect us in the years ahead. In this look back at the important payments themes of 2011, we share a summary of some of our best thinking over the course of 2011 from our PaymentsViews.com web site.

PXTMoney has announced the launch of a mobile payment app that lets consumers "forget the plastic" and instantly load money from PayPal, credit or debit/checking accounts onto their phone. Consumers make payments by using their phone number and PIN.

Whenever you sign up a friend, you earn $1. Every time your friend purchases something using PXTMoney, you get a percentage of that purchase. That money can add up over time, giving you spending money and even tuition money. This offer is ongoing, all a part of using new mobile money.

The initial launch is targeted at local merchants in Brookline, MA. More info can be found at www.pxtmoney.com.

PayByPhone has announced "one of the largest deployments of near field communications (NFC) payment solutions in the world. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), which selected the PayByPhone mobile payment system for parking, is currently adding NFC-enabled stickers to the city’s 30,800 parking spaces to give drivers the option to pay for parking with NFC-enabled mobile phones in addition to mobile apps and mobile web for regular phones."

Fiserv announced the results of a survey of the mobile banking and payment plans of top-tier financial institutions.

The in-depth survey, conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Fiserv in September 2011, evaluated the plans of 10 banks and credit unions that in total hold more than one-third of all U.S. deposit accounts. The results revealed that these financial institutions are moving beyond the basics to deliver increasingly sophisticated mobile capabilities. Transactional services such as remote deposit capture and mobile person-to-person payments will account for the bulk of mobile investment in 2012. However, despite a nearly unanimous commitment to expand overall mobile functionality, institutions remain split on plans to support mobile point-of-sale payments.

A white paper detailing the survey results can be downloaded from the Fiserv website.

On the web:

• Google Wallet Security Questioned - Bank Technology News
• Credit Card "Skimming" on the Rise - San Jose Mercury News
• Half of Online Consumers Would Trade Privacy for Deals - Internet Retailer
• SCVNGR’s New Mobile Payment Solution 'LevelUp' Goes Device Agnostic QR Codes - TechCrunch
• Retail Payments Risk Forum Conference Explores the Role of Government - Portals and Rails
• Mobile Phone Payments Company 'Bango' Signs Deal With Amazon - TechCrunch
• Isis selects Gemalto as TSM for NFC wallet - GigaOM

On the wires:

• TNS Enters Multi-Year Payment Services Agreement with Open Solutions
• peerTransfer and Nelnet Business Solutions Partner to Enhance International Payment Options on Campus
• Mobile Source Capture from Fiserv Gains Momentum among Banks and Credit Unions
• InComm Launches Prepaid Digital Content and Gaming Destination at Best Buy Mexico
• Blackhawk Network Launches Gift Card Mall(TM) in QuikTrip Locations Nationwide

On the web:

• Private-Label Credit Card Spending Drops - Marketing Daily
• The Cardboard Beginnings of the Credit Card - NYTimes.com
• UnionPay and HSBC Launch Dual Currency Card - AsiaOne Business
• History Channel and FiOS Try Selling Items Instantly via TV - NYTimes.com
• VeriFone's CEO Explains Why It Spent $1 Billion on Acquisitions - AllThingsD
• T-Mobile backs out of delayed Dutch mobile payments JV - FierceWireless
• Watch Out PayPal, FlexiGroup Purchases Paymate - Wall Street Journal
• The Future of Mobile Payments - Portals and Rails

On the wires:

• Paychex Launches Online Mobile Application For iPad
• Prepaid Solutions Changes Name to Brightwell Payments
• Bottomline Technologies Expands Capabilities in Healthcare and Acquires European Reseller
• Aria Systems First To Deliver Breakthrough Technology That Eliminates Software Maintenance Downtime for Cloud Billing

MasterCard and mFoundry have announced an international collaboration that will help banks and credit unions provide their customers with NFC-enabled mobile wallets. MasterCard also made an equity investment in mFoundry.

The collaboration and investment will combine MasterCard’s Tap & Go PayPass technology with mFoundry’s mobile financial services platform to make mobile contactless payments accessible to more consumers. Mobile PayPass, which uses Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, enables people to make fast, convenient and highly secure payments by simply tapping their NFC phone on any PayPass-enabled terminal at a merchant check-out.

mFoundry developed and manages Starbucks Card Mobile program, the most successful mobile payments program to date, currently used in more than 6,800 stores nationwide.

"Simply providing consumers with the convenience and functionality of mobile wallet technology will not be sufficient to drive mass-market adoption", according to Mobey Forum. In a recently announced white paper entitled 'Mobile Wallet – Definition and Vision’, the bank-led industry association argues that it will take a lot more than just contactless payment card emulation to drive consumer use of mobile wallets.

Seamless, a Swedish startup, has announced the launch of a new mobile payment solution called 'SEQR'.

The new solution will enable customers to use smart phones rather than credit or debit cards to make payments. By using a mobile phone to scan a QR code at the cash register, the customer can authorise that the payment is drawn from their bank account or credit provider. The Seamless solution – for which patent is currently pending in a total of 41 different criteria – makes it possible for retailers to avoid the high fees charged by credit card companies.

On the web:

• French Bank and Carrier Team Up to Bring Mobile Payments to Market - NFC World
• Telefonica Digital and RIM Announce NFC payments Market Trial in Spain - FierceMobileContent
• 3G Direct Pay Ltd (Kenya) to Integrate M-Pesa and Airtel Money - businessdailyafrica.com
• Starbucks Launches Mobile Payments App in UK and Ireland - Marketing Magazine
• Google Engineer Shares 2012 Plans for Google Wallet - American Banker
• Orange expands Money services in Africa - Rethink Wireless
• Visa and Retailers Discuss Chip Migration - NACS Online
• Australian Taxis Now Take China UnionPay - People's Daily Online
• EU Weighs Need For Mobile Payment Rules To Attract Industry Investment - Bloomberg

On the wires:

• Top Card Issuer Takes Online Resources’ Collections Global
• Ink from Chase Enhances Rewards Program for Small Business Cardholders
• Facebook Adds SafetyPay as New Global Payment Option for Facebook Credits
• Skrill (formerly Moneybookers) Offers Skrill World Post

MasterCard and Telefónica have announced they are forming a joint venture to offer mobile financial solutions for 65 million Vivo consumers in Brazil. "The initiative will create a mobile wallet allowing consumers to make payments via their mobile phones as well as transfer funds, pay bills and make online purchases."

On the web:

• Mobile Melee (Infographic) - Fast Company
• American Express Serves Up P2P "Pay Me Back" on Ticketmaster - NetBanker

On the wires:

• ReD Targets Previously Anonymous Cyber Criminals with New IP Intelligence
• Despegar Selects GlobalCollect as Preferred PSP to Drive Latin American Expansion
• Western Union and USAID Launch Second African Diaspora Marketplace with Small Business Workshops in Seven Cities
• QVC Selects CashStar to Power its New eGift Card Program