We had an opportunity late last week to speak with Rick Rasansky, Chairman and Founding CEO of Sapphire Mobile Systems based in West Conshohocken, PA. Rick was just back from last week's Prepaid Expo where Sapphire announced a partnership with US Bank's Elan Financial Services to conduct a mobile banking and payments pilot for Elan's PayCard customers.

US Bank's Elan Financial Services has announced it has partnered with Sapphire Mobile Systems to conduct a mobile banking and payments pilot, integrating with the Phire Mobile Debit Network to provide customers with "highly secure, instant access to their PayCard accounts via any mobile handset."

Sapphire Mobile Systems has announced the live version of its Phire mobile banking and payments network which the company says is currently in trials at two major US financial institutions. The service gives banks and prepaid debit card issuers the ability to provide their customers with instant access to their accounts using the Short Message Service (SMS) - allowing consumers to check balances, transfer money between accounts and pay bills through their bank's existing bill pay system.