Visa and Obopay have announced a collaboration to enable near real-time payment solutions for disbursing electronic funds to a prepaid card.

“By introducing a Visa prepaid card solution, Obopay offers near real-time disbursement capabilities that allow our customers to avoid the time delay of issuing cash or check,” said David Schwartz, vice president of product and corporate marketing for Obopay. “Adding Visa prepaid cards to Obopay Disbursements enables our partners to send funds to any consumer in the U.S. at dramatically lower costs compared to issuing checks while they can also greatly increase the satisfaction of customers.”

Obopay has announced the availability of Obopay Licensed Payment Services for Partners, a new offering that enables partners to leverage Obopay’s money transfer licenses throughout the U.S.

“The Payments market is quite complex and requires expertise in compliance and working with state and federal regulators to ensure proper licensing, oversight and controls,” said Chris Martin, EVP of Operations and Chief Compliance Officer, Obopay. “To obtain money transfer licenses and maintain them in good standing takes a large investment in time, money and specialized people. By working with Obopay, our partners significantly reduce their time to market and are assured of meeting all applicable regulatory requirements.”

Partners can also take advantage of Obopay’s connections to a broad range of payment networks, as well as its risk management, compliance and settlement capabilities that enable companies to deliver additional unique services under their own brands.

Obopay has announced the availability of 'Obopay Disbursements' which enables a company to disburse funds from their corporate account directly into a payees debit card account at another bank or to a branded prepaid card.

“Obopay offers the broadest range of disbursement and bulk payment solutions in the industry; enabling companies that need to issue high volumes of payments to disburse funds with speed, efficiency, security and scale,” said Obopay Vice President of Product Marketing David Schwartz. “Being a licensed money transmitter enables Obopay to make available to its partners unique services like instant disbursements. Instant disbursements allow our partners to take advantage of real-time interbank payments across payment networks, through our debit network connections. Our disbursement offering also takes advantage of our deep experience as a prepaid card program manager for leading brands.”

PULSE has announced an agreement with Obopay to enable real-time money transfer capabilities for PULSE financial institution participants.

“Combining our extensive debit network with Obopay’s broad range of mobile money solutions gives consumers a faster and more efficient way to pay with their debit card, while also enabling new revenue generating opportunities for our participants,” said Judith McGuire, Executive Vice President of Product Management at PULSE. “A growing number of mobility-minded consumers require instant payments and transfers. The agreement with Obopay is one way we can help facilitate that for our financial institutions and their account holders.”

Obopay has announced the results of a recent survey exploring consumer attitudes about mobile payments and banking in the U.S. 53% of consumers interested in a mobile payment service would consider changing banks if another bank offered the service. 70% of those responding indicated that if the service allowed them to get paid, send or receive money by mobile phone, it would be an incentive to remain at their bank.

Obopay has announced new functionality for its Mobile Money for Banks offering, broadening the scope of mobile transaction capabilities for banks and their customers. The new capabilities for Mobile Money for Banks include mobile transfer capabilities between accounts at different banks, get paid tools including text-to-donate and text-to-pay, and features that make it easier for small businesses or even individuals to accept electronic payments.

Obopay recently announced it will incorporate the STAR Expedited Transfer Service – which enables real-time transfers between bank accounts accounts via the STAR EFT network – into its own Mobile Money for Banks offering. STAR is a First Data company and a major US debit network. The STAR Network offers transaction speeds that are not possible with Automated Clearing House (ACH) transfers, which often take several days to process.

Societe Generale and Obopay have announced they are teaming to bring mobile payment services to banked and unbanked customers in Senegal who have access to a mobile phone through Societe Generale de Banques au Senegal (SGBS).

According to the companies, "the new service, offered as "Yoban'tel by Obopay", is a carrier-agnostic, mobile money transfer and bill payment service that is available to all the people of Senegal with a mobile phone. This is accomplished by leveraging SGBS's current branches and opening up new channels of distribution for banking services through commercial partners including Credit Mutuel du Senegal, TIGO and CANALSAT HORIZONS. Users can enroll for a mobile payment service and load or pick up cash at designated locations throughout Senegal. They can also use the service to send money to anyone throughout the country, or to pay a bill." READ MORE »

MasterCard has announced the availability of the MasterCard MoneySend service for iPhone and iPad users - providing a new way to transfer money in the United States from person-to person from iPhone or iPad's. MasterCard MoneySend is now available for free download at the iPhone App Store. READ MORE »

Obopay has announced Mobile Money for Banks - a new service that "will allow banks to deploy their own branded mobile money service. Designed to make bank accounts the anchor for all current and future mobile money transactions, the service combines complete brand control and a full range of mobile transactions and applications with simple low-cost integration and deployment. Mobile Money for Banks includes the ability to send and transfer money, makes payment card acceptance available to everyone and can be implemented in 30 days or less." READ MORE »

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.

In an article titled "Nokia, Yu and Obopay join region’s cash transfer market", Michael Duma writes for The East African that "Obopay has partnered with Kenya’s fourth mobile network, Essar Telecom Kenya (ETK) and mobile handset maker Nokia, to launch a money transfer services called yuCash — to be carried out under the Obopay platform."

Obopay has announced that its Obopay mobile payments application is now LIVE on the Apple App Store and available for free download.

"By delivering a rich, user friendly experience, Obopay’s iPhone mobile payment application is unparalleled in the market today. Advanced features include push notifications and family-centric money management tools that enable parents to monitor children’s spending and make real-time transfers to/from family accounts. Children can send requests for emergency money to their parents and receive it in seconds. In addition, it is ideal for small merchants who will benefit from the push requests, advanced history display and tracking capabilities."

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.