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.

The Migration and Remittances Team at the World Bank has published a paper titled "Outlook for Remittance Flows 2008‐2010" . From the abstract: "After several years of strong growth, remittance flows to developing countries began to slow down in the third quarter of 2008. This slowdown is expected to deepen further in 2009 in response to the global financial crisis, although the exact magnitude of the growth moderation (or outright decline in some cases) is hard to predict given the uncertainties about global growth, commodity prices, and exchange rates."

MoneyGram International and Cardtronics have announced that MoneyGram money transfer and ExpressPayment urgent bill payment services will be offered through 2,250 advanced-function ATMs located at 7-Eleven, Inc. convenience stores in the U.S. beginning in late 2008. READ MORE

Privier , a charlotte, NC-based company, has announced ATMSend, calling it "the world's 1st 'no-card', 'no-bank account', cash-to-cash ATM remittance service ... aimed at targeting the U.S 106 million unbanked users." READ MORE

Western Union has announced that it has created an alliance with Orascom Telecom Holding S.A.E. ("Orascom Telecom"), one of the largest mobile operators in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, to work together to introduce mobile remittance services in select markets. According to the companies, "the services aim to make low-principal, high-frequency remittances more convenient to the millions of consumers who send money every day." READ MORE

Earlier today, Citi and Obopay announced a new mobile person-to-person mobile payments pilot. According to the fee schedule announced for the pilot, sending money has a transaction fee (paid by the sender) of $0.25 for amounts up to $50 and 1.5% of the amount for transactions above $50. So, for example, on a $500 transaction, the sender's fee would be $7.50. Note that Citi and Obopay are waiving all send money fees through the end of October.

Citi has announced that the launch of a pilot of a new mobile person-to-person money transfer service to new and existing Citibank customers via Obopay. Beginning today, the Citi Obopay mobile payment service will be offered to all Citibank customers in the U.S., with a focus on Boston, Chicago, Maryland, Philadelphia, and New Jersey. According to Citi, "this is the first time that a real-time, person-to-person mobile money transfer service with the ability to link directly to a bank account has been offered in the U.S." READ MORE

Last week, RBC Royal Bank announced that it is testing a new service, RBC Mobex Mobile Payment Service, that "allows users to easily and securely send and receive money instantly using a text message on their mobile phone."

RBC is doing several smart things here - announcing a new person-to-person service that's incrementally useful - not the "be all, end all" mobile payments service. They're making it easy to participate and doing some smart adaptive risk management too. The technology for the new service is being provided by paybox, a German mobile payments solutions company. Read on for details. READ MORE

Visa today hosted an innovation briefing in New York, during which the company showcased advances in electronic payments that it says are "creating a future of “better money” that is more convenient, more reliable and more secure than cash or checks." Visa was joined by a number of prominent innovators including Google, Intel, Nokia and Singapore Post Ltd. READ MORE

Visa and U.S. Bank have announced plans "to launch a mobile money transfer pilot program to allow registered Visa cardholders in the United States to use their mobile phones to securely send funds directly to another registered Visa cardholder’s account. The pilot, which is intended to begin by the end of 2008, is the first U.S.-based trial testing mobile money transfers between Visa accounts." READ MORE

CashEdge has introduced Intelligent Money Movement -- what the company calls "an enhanced version of the Company's money movement platform that provides consumers and small businesses simple, seamless access to conduct electronic money movement through online and mobile banking applications." READ MORE