Obopay has announced its entrance into the online games market with the immediate availability of a mobile payment solution. With Obopay's mobile payment service, consumers can "mobilize" their credit or debit card by linking it to their mobile phone number, making it convenient to quickly purchase goods online. READ MORE

If you're in the San Francisco Bay Area on the evening of Tuesday, October 20th, you may want to attend the MIT/Stanford Venture Lab discussion on the topic of "Mobile Wallet: Can your phone replace your wallet?" being held at Stanford University.

Panelists for the discussion, to be moderated by Scott Ellison - Vice President/Mobile and Wireless, IDC, include:

• Wenceslao Casares - Founder, Co-Chief Executive Officer and Director, BlingNation
• Eric Duprat - General Manager Mobile, Paypal
• Dev Khare - Vice President, Venrock
• Margaret Mackenzie - SVP Operations and Chief Financial Officer, Boku
• Carol Realini - CEO, Obopay

More details here.

Earlier this week, Nokia announced its Nokia Money initiative. Here are a couple of interesting blog posts discussing its prospects:

• Nokia Money – An Uphill Battle by Mark Beccue, ABI Research.
• Finnish Line by Dave Birch, Consult Hyperion.

What do you think? Add your comments below!

Nokia has introduced Nokia Money - a new mobile service operated in conjunction with Obopay - calling it "a new mobile financial service offering consumers with mobile device access to basic financial services. For many consumers, this will be the first time they have had any access to such financial services."

According to the company, "Nokia Money has been designed to be as simple and convenient as making a voice call or sending an SMS. It will enable consumers to send money to another person just by using the person's mobile phone number, as well as to pay merchants for goods and services, pay their utility bills, or recharge their prepaid SIM cards (SIM top-up). The services can be accessed 24 hours a day from anywhere, meaning savings in travel costs and time. Nokia is building a wide network of Nokia Money agents, where consumers can deposit money in or withdraw cash from their accounts." READ MORE

Over on PaymentsViews.com, Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson provides an updated look at mobile payments provider Obopay as part of her series of interviews with many mobile payments companies. READ MORE

In an article titled "Investors Bet on Payments via Cellphone", Claire Cain Miller and Matt Richtel write for the New York Times about Obopay (and MasterCard's MoneySend launched last week with Obopay), Boku, Zong and PayPal.

[Editor's note: one facet of a couple of these services that the article's authors fail to note is the cost of payment acceptance - and how that cost varies from service to service. In some segments - such as virtual goods where merchants have a close to zero cost of goods sold - merchants can afford to pay a lot to gain widespread acceptance on cell phones. Other merchants, with real costs of goods sold, would find the costs of these approaches out of the question. There's a similar story when it comes to person-to-person money transfer. For domestic transfers in the US, there's a certain cost sensitivity. For international remittances involving currency conversion, on the other hand, there's a much greater opportunity to price for value. Need help understanding all of this? Drop us a note here!]

MasterCard has announced that its "fully-integrated, on-demand person-to-person (P2P) mobile payment platform for issuers in the United States is set to go live later this month. With this new platform, MasterCard participating bank customers will be able to offer Mobile MasterCard MoneySend(TM) P2P payments to their customers." READ MORE

Obopay has announced the Obopay Family Account that "lets parents send money to their children -- or any family member -- instantly from any mobile phone. With Obopay's Family Account, parents get an Obopay Family Prepaid MasterCard issued by The Bancorp Bank for any child at least 13 years old, which can be used in-person, online or by phone with any merchant that accepts MasterCard debit cards." READ MORE

In an article titled "Nokia Makes a Call for Global Mobile Payments", Steve Bills writes for the American Banker about Nokia's investment in mobile payments provider Obopay. Bills cites a Nokia executive who compares the integration of cameras into mobile phones over the last few years with the potential for mobile banking and payments being similarly integrated - although the Nokia exec "declined to give details about the Obopay investment or to say whether Nokia plans to incorporate the technology in its phones."

Obopay has announced an investment from Nokia - sayimg that "this investment is a resounding endorsement for Obopay's ongoing innovation in mobile money technology." READ MORE

Obopay has announced "three widgets - small applications that can be added to web pages such as blogs and profile pages - to help people give, donate and pay money quickly and easily. Receiving and sending money with Obopay to friends and loved ones online has never been easier." READ MORE

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

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

The Bancorp Bank has announced it has been selected by Obopay to issue prepaid payment cards linked to Obopay mobile payment accounts. The bank says "the new cards are available now and are accepted anywhere MasterCard debit cards are accepted and at more than one million ATM locations worldwide. The cards are linked to Obopay mobile money accounts, which users can access through any mobile phone using Obopay’s downloadable mobile application, text messaging, or mobile Web." READ MORE

Obopay and Grameen Solutions have announced what they're calling "a unique, first-of-its-kind alliance to use mobile technology to deliver banking services to a billion of the world’s poorest people by 2018. The Grameen-Obopay Bank A Billion Initiative will provide access to affordable financial services, including cross-border remittances, money transfer, payments, savings and credit accounts. By empowering life and work endeavors with mobile technology that is ubiquitous even in the most impoverished and remote corners of the world, Grameen-Obopay are bringing the full power of banking to those who need it most." READ MORE

We have received news of the following recent management changes:

• Michael Diamond has been named Senior Vice President, Business Development, at Obopay. Previously, Diamond led business development teams in high-growth information software categories at IBM.

Obopay has notified its users that, effective August 7, the transaction fee charged for sending money will change from $0.10 to $0.25. In addition, the instant bank transfer feature is being disabled. The changes are included in new terms and conditions that become effective August 7.

[Update - July 23, 2008: In an earlier edition of this post, we had incorrectly stated that the instant bank transfer feature being disabled had been announced in March - that was incorrect. The features announced on March 18 remain part of Obopay's service.]

MasterCard has announced an agreement with Obopay "to offer a fully-integrated on-demand person-to-person mobile payment service in the United States. The service, offered via MasterCard MoneySend, will give new and existing MasterCard issuing customers the ability to provide an innovative mobile payments service to their MasterCard cardholders on all credit, debit and prepaid MasterCard-branded products." READ MORE

In a multi-part series of posts, Sramana Mitra interviews Obopay founder and CEO Carol Realini about "bringing banking to the cell phone masses." Realini talks about her exposure to the use of cell phones in the Congo: "I walked into the prepaid cell phone store and it looked exactly like a bank. People were standing in line with their bags of money in queues."

MSN India reports on mobile wallets and payments in India saying that "current payment players in India are mChek, Obopay and PayMate." The article notes that the Reserve Bank of India is currently formulating the regulatory guidelines for mobile payments with the final draft expected by June 2008.

Obopay has announced the closing of its fourth round of venture funding, raising $20 million along with adding two new board members. Essar Communications Holdings Limited, the telecom subsidiary of Essar Global Limited, led the round. The two new board members are K B Rajendran, Senior Vice President, Essar Global Limited and Robert G. Hottensen, Jr., Senior Vice President for Public Equity at Olayan America Corporation. READ MORE

GigaOm's Stacey Higginbotham writes that "Obopay has scored $20 million in additional funding, CEO Carol Realini told me this afternoon. She and other Obopay executives contributed to the round by wiring their investments to the company coffers by way of their Obopay accounts on their mobile phones." [Editor's note: We've not yet found an official press release from the company announcing the financing.]

iovation has announced that mobile payments provider Obopay is implementing iovation ReputationManager, iovation’s device-based fraud management service, 'to reduce the risk of online payment fraud by enhancing its ability to proactively identify devices that have been associated with fraudulent activity.'

In an article titled 'Turning your cell phone into a wallet', Fortune Small Business writer Jonathan Blum profiles Obopay's CEO Carol Realini. Also, earlier this week, Obopay launched the 'Official Obopay Blog'.

Citibank has announced that it will make Obopay’s mobile person-to-person payment service available to Citibank checking account customers on a trial basis. Citibank says it is the first U.S. retail bank to trial an integrated mobile payment service.

Obopay has announced the launch of its instant money transfer service in India through an alliance between wholly-owned subsidiary Obopay India and YES BANK, an Indian private sector bank.

Obopay has announced that "customers can now use their existing bank accounts to send and receive money via their mobile phone. With Obopay's mobile money transfer, non- customers can pick up payments without signing up for Obopay. These innovations make it easier than ever for any bank customer to conveniently send and receive payments from their mobile phones."

Abhineet Kumar reports from Mumbai for livemint.com on the evolution of mobile banking and payments in India - including the regulatory oversight of that evolution. "Californian mobile payment service provider Obopay Inc. and Bangalore’s mChek India Payment Systems Pvt. Ltd are among a fast-expanding breed of mobile payment service providers which have planned offerings that work within the guidelines and bring the convenience of mobile transactions."

Obopay has announced that it is adding support for BlackBerry smartphones. According to the company, "the new Obopay application for BlackBerry users provides fast, customizable access to Obopay's full suite of mobile payment services."