TechCrunch is reporting that American Express has acquired Sometrics, a virtual currency platform and in-game payments provider serving the online game industry, for $30 million. Supposedly, Sometrics will be used within American Express' Serve digital payments platform. No details have been disclosed, but AmEx has confirmed the acquisition with a tweet.

Zeevex, an InComm company distributing virtual currency cards through national retailers in the U.S., has announced that it "has entered into an exclusive agreement with Twitpay to bring viral social network payments to the online game market."

Yesterday, at Facebook's f8 developer conference in San Francisco, Facebook Credits manager Deb Liu provided more details about Facebook's plans for Credits - "a virtual currency in games, which you play for free but pay for specific virtual items with the virtual currency, which you buy with real money."

In an article titled "How Facebook plans to fuel the app economy with Facebook Credits", Dean Takahashi writes for VentureBeat about Credits.

In an article titled "A Look At The Future of Facebook Credits", Jason Kincaid writes for TechCrunch - in particular about App2user Credits - "a set of promotions that allow users to earn Facebook Credits in ways that don’t involve paying with their credit card."

Take a look at the Inside Facebook blog and the ads from its sponsors - including Zong, SuperRewards, Allpass, PaymentPin and OfferPal.

Also, notice the survey results discussed in this article - none of the major consumer credit card companies or issuers made the top 10!

Have you signed up to use virtual currency or pay for digital goods using your mobile phone?