Global Payments has announced that it has signed an agreement to sell its DolEx- and Europhil-branded money transfer businesses to an affiliate of Palladium Equity Partners, LLC. Under the terms of the agreement, Global Payments will receive proceeds in the range of $85 million to $110 million based on the operating performance of the business determined at the time of closing, which is subject to customary regulatory approvals including the consent to the transaction by the issuers of money transfer licenses in many of the states and countries where DolEx or Europhil currently operates.

MasterCard has announced that starting in 2010, MasterCard's financial institutions will have the capability to offer MasterCard cardholders money transfers from any MasterCard or Maestro card to any other MasterCard or Maestro card. According to MasterCard, "this global card-to-card money transfer service will expand the usability and value of MasterCard products and global payments network by providing its customers with a convenient and cost-effective money transfer platform enabling person-to-person payments and cross-border remittances." READ MORE

Visa has announced that is has extended the global reach of its Visa Money Transfer Service to greater China and the United Arab Emirates, two of the world's most active territories for international remittance. Visa has also launched a new managed service, available initially in Canada and the U.S., that makes it easier for a financial institution to offer Visa Money Transfer to its customers. READ MORE

Fiserv has announced plans for a new personal payments service that it says "will enable individuals to quickly and easily send or receive money person-to-person using their existing online banking relationship. The service will be made available to the more than 3,100 financial institutions in the Fiserv online payment network, linking users with their friends, family, neighbors and colleagues." READ MORE

FIS has announced that it is integrating PayPal's person-to-person (P2P) payment system into the FIS online bill payment application for financial institutions. FIS says that "by integrating paperless P2P functionality into its online bill payment application, FIS empowers banks and credit unions to simultaneously solve for a real consumer need and drive increased transaction activity at the online channel." READ MORE

CashEdge and Firethorn have announced a strategic relationship to bring to market an integrated mobile person-to-person (P2P) payments solution integrating CashEdge's POPmoney P2P payments service with Firethorn's Mobile Wallet solution. According to the companies, "the integrated mobile P2P solution will enable financial institutions to offer their customers the ability to send electronic payments using CashEdge's POPmoney from within their Firethorn mobile banking application, by simply using the email address or mobile phone number of the recipient. This comprehensive mobile P2P banking solution will give consumers greater control over their finances, enabling them to pay other people whenever and wherever they want." READ MORE

MoneyGram International and Affinity Global Services have announced an agreement "that will enable mobile money transfer receives in important markets around the globe, bringing greater convenience and extending the benefits of MoneyGram services to a new category of consumers. The MoneyGram and Affinity Global Services alliance will allow consumers to use MoneyGram’s agent network of over 180,000 locations around the world to send money to an account associated with a mobile device." READ MORE

Javelin Strategy & Research has released a new report - Mobile Person-to-Person Payments: Mounting Telco Activity in a Mobile Channel Segment That Financial Institutions Can’t Afford to Lose - that finds that "financial institutions must act now to implement person-to-person mobile solutions before carriers capture the market."

Javelin says "that conditions are growing ripe for potential widespread consumer use of mobile devices to send payments between one another: smartphones are now used by 17 percent of consumers, mobile banking is used by many, and use of the internet for banking and shopping has been common for years. These are just some of the conditions that have created an increased likelihood that consumers will soon begin to use mobile person-to-person (P2P) transfers." READ MORE

Western Union and Fifth Third Bank have announced an agreement to offer the Western Union global money-transfer service at Fifth Third’s more than 1,300 banking center locations in 12 states. The Western Union global money-transfer service, a new service offering for Fifth Third accountholders and walk-in consumers, will be available in the next several months. READ MORE

Over on CGAP's Technology Blog, Olga Morawczynski, a doctoral candidate at the University of Edinburgh, writes about Kenya's M-Pesa and what most of us don't know about M-Pesa. She credits much of its success not to the usual suspects we've heard about but rather to Sagentia, a technology consultancy firm based in Cambridge. As often happens with innovations, it was the small dedicated team working with the two big players that provided the focus to get things done!

CashEdge has announced the launch of POPmoney - calling it "the first person-to-person payments (P2P) service for banks, enabling banks to provide simple and secure P2P payments from their online or mobile banking applications." READ MORE

Western Union has announced the launch of a Digital Vendor Program intended to extend the reach and accessibility of Western Union Money Transfer services to mobile finance initiatives in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

"Establishing a strong mobile vendor program is a critical step in the delivery of our 'Western Union Anywhere' service proposition," said Matt Dill, SVP and Head of Western Union Digital Ventures. "By collaborating on a global level with proven mobile platform providers, we believe we can simplify deployments for our mobile partners and introduce a more consistent Western Union experience for consumers." READ MORE

Here's the press release on the launch of a new mobile money transfer and payment service in Canada called Zoompass.

"Canada’s three leading wireless operators, today launched Zoompass, a breakthrough mobile money transfer and payment service. Zoompass gives Canadians a fast and convenient way to send and receive money securely using their mobile phone. The service is enabled through the Zoompass application on the mobile phone which combines an easy-to-use interface with an integrated contact manager that redefines how users send and receive money. Zoompass is a better way to pay than cash, cheque, or wire transfer." READ MORE

TSYS has announced that it has signed an agreement with TransCash Corporation to launch a prepaid money transfer card. The prepaid card will initially be launched in France during Q3 2009 and will be sold by Midi France Telecom. To coincide with the agreement, TSYS has opened a new office in Paris to support the company’s expansion into France. READ MORE

Sybase 365 has announced that it will team with Swisscontact, the Swiss Foundation for Technical Cooperation, to provide development of Mobile Money Transfer (MMT) and Mobile Money for the Unbanked (MMU) services in emerging markets. READ MORE

Western Union and Fidelity National Information Services have announced an agreement to offer Western Union global money transfer services to FIS' more than 8,500 banking institution clients throughout the United States. The signing of FIS is an important step in Western Union's North America "go-to-market" strategy to continue its expansion into the banking channel. As Western Union expands its service offerings, in an effort to strongly position money transfers to consumers, it looks to tap into consumer banking channels including: Cash-to-Cash, Account-to-Cash, and Account-to-Account. READ MORE

Western Union has introduced a new way to send money within the U.S. using its prepaid card platform coupled with an Overnight Home Delivery service featuring Western Union's new MoneyWise Visa prepaid card. READ MORE

Western Union and U.S. Bank have announced an agreement to offer the Western Union global money-transfer service in 2,791 U.S. Bank branch offices across 24 states. The agreement will connect consumers to more than 334,000 Western Union Agent locations worldwide. READ MORE

Visa Europe and Visa Inc. have announced plans to work with the GSMA to advance the delivery of mobile financial services around the world. As part of the continuing collaboration between the two organizations, the GSMA has selected Visa as a provider for mobile money transfer solutions globally, and is working to execute an agreement to formalize participation terms. Visa is already a leading provider of money transfer solutions with active programs in 14 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. READ MORE

Citibank N.A. has announced the launch of Citi Online Remit, a new online money transfer service to India.

Citi Online Remit provides Non Resident Indians (NRIs) the facility to transfer funds to India from any US Checking/Savings account or using a US Credit/Debit Card as a direct transfer into the beneficiary’s Bank account or as a draft couriered to the beneficiary’s mailing address in India.

m-Via, a new mobile money remittance company, has posted a "sneak peek" of its new offering which will be launched at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas later today. m-Via says it is "the first solution for remitting money via ANY mobile phone from the USA to Mexico, South America and the Philippines. m-Via will only be sold via wireless retailers in the United States beginning in January."

India's mChek, a mobile payments and security company, has developed mobile banking and payments technology that it is applying to microfinance applications and mass banking in a pilot with Grameen Koota, a microfinance institution in India. In a series of videos, mChek introduces the service, demonstrates how it works and shares some initial results.

If you're interested in learning more about mChek's pilot results and its work with the bottom of the economic pyramid, contact Valerie Rozycki at Valerie@mchek.com. READ MORE

A briefing paper titled "International Remittances" by Terri Bradford, Payments System Research Specialist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, describes some of the means by which individuals remit funds internationally -- informal networks, money transfer operators, financial institutions and other options -- and discusses some of the factors that may influence the choice of provider.

Obopay has enhanced their web site's support of iPhone users - now delivering a nice, iPhone-saavy user interface when the Obopay web site is visited using the iPhone's Safari browser. READ MORE

James Mbugua reports for the Nairobi Star that "four big local banks [in Kenya[ have formed an "ad hoc committee" to try and get M-PESA stopped." M-PESA, a mobile payments service offered by Safaricom, has been very successful - "The problem for the banks seems to be the extraordinary popularity of M-PESA. Launched in March 2007, it now has over 5,000,000 registered users and almost 5,000 registered outlets." [Editor's note: Hat tip to Dave Birch!]

Monitise and NatWest have announced a commission-free international mobile phone payment transfer service between the bank's customers’ current accounts in the UK and their PKO BP accounts in Poland. READ MORE

eCommLink, and Rechargeplus Global have announced a "global alliance that combines the companies’ prepaid debit platforms with mobile and merchant applications to serve the needs of the growing international money transfer market. Hundreds of billions of dollars are sent home each year by migrant workers, often to places with little or no banking and technology infrastructure. Providing a means for the recipient to access and utilize these funds can be a challenge, especially when there may not be a local bank or money transfer store for hundreds of miles." READ MORE

Motorola has announced a mobile commerce solution for financial and retail merchandising needs. The solution, consisting of an M-Wallet and back-end management platform, has been deployed by Union Mobile Pay (UMPay), a leading mobile payment company established by China Mobile Communications Corporation (CMCC) and China UnionPay. READ MORE

Writing on the NetBanker blog, Jim Bruene takes a look at WaMu's new Send Direct funds transfer service powered by Cambridge, Massachusetts-based AliasWire. For a 2% fee, WaMu credit cardholders can send money to almost any other US bank account and can be initiated via the website, an SMS message to a specific short code, or a telephone call to a toll-free number. Bruene writes: "It's a cool service. It will be interesting to see if Chase continues the service as they assimilate the WaMu credit card portfolio. "

On Web Worker Daily, Mike Gunderloy takes a look at Twitpay, described as "a simple way to send payments via Twitter." A Twitpay account is funded via PayPal in amounts between $10 and $49.99. Twitpay's FAQ page says that the service was created by a team at the Atlanta Startup Weekend.