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Privately-held, Cape Town, South Africa-based Fundamo says it boasts more than 50 active mobile financial services deployments across more than 40 countries, including 27 countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Fundamo’s platform enables the delivery of mobile financial services to unbanked and under-banked consumers around the world, including person-to-person payments, airtime top-up, bill payment and branchless banking services.

The combined Visa Fundamo platform will add enhanced functionality and new services to existing mobile financial services subscribers for globally accepted payments solutions.

Fundamo’s deployments currently have a base of more than five million registered subscribers and the potential to reach more than 180 million consumers with mobile financial services.

Fundamo CEO Hannes van Rensburg and the executive team will continue to manage current and future Fundamo implementations as members of Visa’s mobile product organization.

Monitise and Visa, meanwhile, say they will debut a mobile banking solution in the U.S. for clients of Visa DPS, the company’s debit and prepaid processing platform.

Isis, which was formed through a partnership involving AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and T-Mobile USA, is attempting to enter the mobile payments business at a busy time. Google has already launched Google Wallet, although it remains limited to one smartphone on Sprint Nextel, and is only compatible with merchants with newer payment terminals. Visa, meanwhile, is attempting to create its own digital wallet. American Express, which has expressed a preference to partner, on Monday said it would invest $100 million in start-ups devoted to digital payments.

The approach that Isis is taking is wholly different from Google. Isis is working on a neutral platform that serves as a foundation for other parties such as retailers, credit card issuers and payment networks, who can plug in and offer their own services to their customers. Isis doesn't access any of the customer data. Abbott said it is working with a number of different business models, including charging a rental fee to use the platform, or possibly taking a cut of each transaction. The hope is the platform is valuable enough of a tool that companies will be willing to pay to use it.

That's a wholly different approach than Google Wallet, which is largely controlled by Google. Under that model, Google is providing the payment services to retailers, payment networks and banks for free. But in exchange, it gets access to the customer's data, enabling the company to deliver targeted ads.

"Free is a price I can't afford," he said, was a common expression among the companies he talks to.

Isis started off slowly but has had a few significant announcements in the recent months. The venture managed to strike deals with the four major payment networks: Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover, which was the first to sign up with ISIS.

Its plans are for a trial to begin next year in Salt Lake City and Austin, Texas. Abbott said he wasn't worried that Isis was falling behind Google's own initiative.

Abbott is less concerned about timing because much of the infrastructure is still moving into place. Phones and merchant terminals need a technology called near-field communications to talk with each other. There are few terminals with the necessary NFC chip, and even fewer phones. The Nexus S is one of the few NFC-enabled devices, and is positioned as Google's flagship phone for Google Wallet. The upcoming Galaxy Nexus will also have NFC, as well as a number of other handsets including BlackBerrys.

ISIS is focused on building out the system, improving the customer experience, and making sure all of its partners will be ready. That includes the carriers, handset manufacturers, payment networks, banks and retailers, who all must be able to handle or direct a customer complaint if something goes wrong.

"We absolutely want to get out fast, but we won't put out anything until it's ready," he said. "The customer experience is infinitely more important than speed."

Peer 1 will operate Zunicore across three data centers in Fremont, Calif.; Toronto; and Portsmouth, England. The company also offers a service level agreement aimed to luring businesses to the cloud. It appears that Peer 1′s cloud will not compete for hard-core developers that tend to like the ability to scale on Amazon, no matter the drawbacks, but it might appeal to those customers wanting a little more flexibility than a PaaS might offer but don’t want to sweat the uncertainties that might come with a true IaaS.

Dwolla sees itself more like Visa than PayPal. EBay may actually disagree with that considering that it is pushing very hard into the mobile wallets segment of the mobile payments industry and Dwolla operates in much the same way.

Dwolla wants to position itself as a go-to resource for financial institutions to create a mobile payments infrastructure in communities such as Des Moines. Square, with its recent Card Case update, is also playing in this space.

Consumers benefit from Dwolla because of the location and social features of the platform.

The benefit of Dwolla is that it is basically electronic cash. This is one of the truest "mobile wallets" concepts.

Proxi was released by Dwolla in August. It allows users to open the app and see what merchants are accepting mobile payments via Dwolla in their vicinity.

The company can position itself to be both the front end and back end of the payment process. As such, Google Wallet, Square, Intuit GoPayment (or any of the other dongle-based competitors) could theoretically tie into it as a backend.

An alarm clock not only rings, but can also switch on the coffee machine while turning on the light.

Later this summer, American Express announced a partnership with Patch, AOL's hyperlocal news and content outlet. Serve will power the Patch Deals platform, a Groupon-style discounts program with local merchants on the AmEx network.

Dr Brendan Baker, Business Development Manager for Opengear. “The challenge is both in opening up this mass of data, and turning it into usable information. That way, every day things can make smart decisions based on their environments – say a hot water system that activates only as needed based on learned household habits, or even negotiates a tariff with the gas provider.”

. “Opengear smart devices aren’t limited to providing the plumbing to securely connect these systems, they are capable of making the smart decisions at the edge. We are already seeing them rolled out in these kinds of applications, particularly in utilities, security and health sectors and as part of smart cities initiatives.”

For example, Square will be adding in-depth merchant analytics to its iPad experience, allowing merchants to access information about which inventory is selling well, and what they can do to help make more money. Rabois tells me it’s about providing data insights from transactions and interactions, and giving these small businesses the tools that big businesses and retailers can afford. As for focusing just on the iPad, he says that if there is an Android tablet that has traction, Square will invest in a comparable Android tablet offering.

Another product area where Square will be continuing to focus its efforts is on Card Case, which is a virtual card case (via a mobile app) that consumers fill with ‘cards’ of all the merchants they visit and buy from who accept Square. These mobile cards include locations, merchant contact info, coupons, order and purchase history and more. Users can also use Card Case to ‘pay with their name’ and even enable hands-free payments.

Rabois explains that Card Case has seen major traction amongst consumers, and is on the same growth trajectory (in terms of usage and engagement) as Square was when it first launched to the public in 2009. One area where the startup will be innovating is personalization, and helping merchants to provide a more individual, personalized experience based on interactions to each customer.

As for transaction volumes, Rabois declined to give us any exact numbers but did say that transactions have hit way north of $11 million per day on a number of days in the past few months.

Armed with over $100 million in new funding, Square is also preparing for international expansion within the year, which was revealed at the time of Branson’s investment.

With the major product innovations set to take place this year, Rabois tells me that Square is also looking to triple its employee count in 2012. Currently, Square has a staff of 200 employees, up from around 40 at the same time in 2011. Most of the hiring will be of engineers, specializing in a variety of areas including iOS, Android, Ruby, back-end infrastructure and more.

In the end, Square’s 2012 goals are still aligned to the startup’s core principle: to help small businesses everywhere accept credit cards. Rabois says that there are still 26 million businesses in the U.S. that don’t accept credit cards, and he expects to convert a “huge fraction of them” this year. Stay tuned.

In 2010, Nordic Choice Hotels was first to try mobile NFC key technology in hotels: It was an important learning experience that helped identifying needed improvements and changes

“When Nordic Choice Hotels conducted an NFC key pilot in 2010 at our Clarion Hotel Stockholm property we learned that mobile keys are the future for hospitality. We also learned of some limitations to the technology and it was decided not to expand the trial,” said Svein Krakk, Nordic Choice Hotels CIO. “Indeed the pilot we ran was very educative and helped us identify several areas that needed to be improved in order to make NFC viable within a hospitality environment.

“The No. 1 priority for Nordic Choice Hotels is to provide freedom of choice for our guests," Krakk said. "Freedom to choose the phone you prefer, to use any mobile operator, to use mobile keys or ordinary keys independently or in combination. We started looking for alternative technologies addressing some of the shortcomings of the pilot. First the user interface needed to be improved. With the latest generation of NFC phones it is not very easy for the end user to figure out how to position the phone vis à vis the lock reader. We also wanted a solution that bypassed the SWP protocol which is designed to make the solution mobile operator and mobile carrier dependant. The pilot was limited to one mobile operator. More than 1,500 mobile operators / carriers exist around the world and our guests could come from anywhere, so offering a solution that works only with one or a few carriers would be pointless.”

Hotelier’s independency and cost control are key "Equally important, the SWP standard drives the cost and complexity if implementation towards areas that hoteliers do not like," he said. "It implies a long list of fees to pay to the mobile phone carriers and it places our brands and hotels in a state of dependency that is not acceptable. In addition, we felt that using a solution that would make us dependant on one lock vendor only was not a good idea."

A good mobile front desk bypass solution must be guest centric, supported by a strong business case and must be deployable for real "In 2010, we also tested the Mobile Key solution by OpenWays with CAC™ technology," Krakk said. "We appreciated that it was compatible with all cell phones worldwide, that it was easy to use and that it was mobile carrier independent. Equally important, the pilots conducted were great successes both from a technology and a guest satisfaction stand point. As a result, we decided to deploy Mobile Key by OpenWays in several hotels and we are continuing as we speak. "We also decided to challenge OpenWays to think about the next steps and to include NFC as part of their strategy," he added. "Obviously, we wanted an NFC solution that would be free of the identified shortfalls but also would allow us to eventually offer more services to our guests in the years to come. We do realize that it will take years before NFC phones reach any form of critical mass, nevertheless we want to be sure to deploy and invest in the most future-proof platform while our dependency on both mobile carriers and lock vendors would be minimal. As a result, OpenWays proposed to us Mobile Key DUAL© with Pure NFC™. We were immediately seduced with the open architecture of the OpenWays solution. We were thrilled with the idea to offer a DUAL platform allowing us to leverage all mobiles today with the CAC™ technology while building an infrastructure for when NFC will be reaching critical mass. We are now looking forward to go live with several hotels this year."

Mobile Key DUAL© with Pure NFC™ is very unique: The solution is protected by 26 patent filings and patents; It allows OpenWays' customers to deploy globally without having to ever worry about knowing if their guests have the right phone or the right carrier; And, it works with all phones and all carriers. "Pure NFC™ allows adding NFC features while still being fully carrier and lock provider independent," Metivier said. "It is highly secured and operates on trusted networks. It leverages modern cryptology combined with highly secured OTP (One Time Password) principles. Implementation costs are significantly lower than with the sole SWP protocol and significant engineering efforts were invested in making the user interface intuitive. This was achieved with the design of very specific RFID antennas designed to provide high reading performances with the next generation of NFC handsets. Other areas of focus were ergonomics and human factors. With NFC, what appears to be a good idea -- because you simply have to wave your phone to a lock to open it -- can sometime be a very bad idea when you truly analyse user behaviours and expectations."

A solution compatible for both new build and existing hotel locks Like Mobile Key by OpenWays, Mobile Key DUAL© with Pure NFC™ can be applied to existing hotel locks and/or major renovations. New locks that are factory made with the OpenWays module built in can be provided by the major electronic lock vendors.

A solution that works with ALL cell phones and ALL Smartphones With Mobile Key by OpenWays, all smartphones can receive an app and leverage any data network (2G, 3G, 4G and even the hotel WiFi network) to use Mobile Key. The same is true for hotel staff who use our “Mobile key for Master Keys” that offers much more security (real time master key management) and flexibility than traditional plastic cards.

A “green” solution that contributes to reduced waste Mobile Key is green. The more guests use their mobile phones as room keys, the less plastic key cards will end up spoiling the environment. Today everyone is concerned about the planet, and hoteliers want to allow their guests to contribute to waste reduction programs. Because Mobile Key by OpenWays is only made with data, it is the cleanest room key a hotelier can offer. "With Mobile Key DUAL© with Pure NFC™, we are making a giant step forward and confirming our global leadership in key management via Mobile phone," Metivier said. "Mobile Key DUAL© with Pure NFC™ is a solution that is going to be 'new for long time' and will be also applied to many other market segments outside the hospitality industry, such as residential, commercial buildings, university campuses, and more. "We would like to thank our partners Nordic Choice Hotels, Nokia, NXP, KABA SAFLOK and Ariane systems that are making these first 2012 deployments possible," he said.

About OpenWays | OpenWays is a global solution provider of mobile-based access-management and security solutions. With offices in Chicago, Las Vegas, Seoul and in Europe, OpenWays provides technology solutions allowing for the secure issuance and delivery of access rights and keys process via any cell phone operating on any network. The OpenWays solution is truly unique as it is built on the concept of credential dematerialization. The OpenWays mobile room key solution works on ALL the 6 billion cell phones in service in the world today. For more information, please contact Barb Worcester at +1 440 930-5770 or email barbw@prproconsulting.com. More information can be found by visiting www.OpenWays.com.

In a video provided by PayPal, it shows how users will be able to walk into a store and check in to a location to unlock discounts and coupons. When a consumer goes to check out, he’ll be able to pay by entering his phone number. That leverages eBay’s purchase of Zong and its carrier billing capabilities, though it’s not clear how much easier or more convenient that is for consumers who pay with a credit card swipe. But it does open up the option to use carrier billing for physical goods in-store, which is good for people without a card, though the question of how large the transactions fees will be is important. Right now, carrier billing fees are still much higher than credit card fees, which might deter some merchants.

Users will also be able to scan items in-store and pay for them with PayPal without having to get in line. Customers can just flash their phone to an employee who will confirm the purchase. This is very much like AisleBuyer and it sounds like PayPal is looking to bring this to restaurant bills as well, something Thompson hinted at in his blog post. This is a cool step that makes sense for people who want to get in and out quickly.

Customers will be able to apparently pay ahead for coffee ahead of time and pick it up. Users will also be able to choose how they pay for something after the purchase with PayPal Credit, which seems to leverage eBay’s BillMeLater. All of this appears to work through PayPal’s mobile application and doesn’t seem to require any new investments by merchants. That’s a big concern for mobile payments built on near field communication, which requires many businesses to upgrade their point-of-sale terminals to handle contactless payments.

The new mobile payment tools don’t appear to include NFC payments. PayPal recently introduced person-to-person payments using NFC on Android devices, but the company told me at the time it was just focusing NFC on P2P payments. It sounds like PayPal is trying to work around the hardware constraints of NFC payments at point of sale.

Other shopping features on display included the ability to get push notifications for discounts that can be shared, which appears to build off eBay’s acquisition of WHERE. Consumers will also be able to scan an item in store and find inventory at other locations, something eBay got from its RedLaser and Milo pick-ups.

It’s unclear how soon all of this will come together and how many merchants will sign on. But providing a complete service for retailers and businesses to not only push out offers and discounts but also complete the transactions makes sense. Merchants can close the loop on transactions and understand how their marketing is doing. This is essentially what Google is trying to do with Google Wallet and Offers though it’s focusing primarily on facilitating targeted marketing, rather than taking a cut of transactions.

PayPal’s payment initiative is part of eBay’s broader commerce platform called X.commerce, which it’s building off the acquisition of Magento.

But there’s also a lot of questions to be answered. For instance, will consumers find this more convenient than a card swipe? Will PayPal make it any easier for people to set-up and manage accounts? Do all of these parts work well together in one solution? And how aggressive will PayPal be in selling this to merchants and consumers? I’ll be interested to hear more and I think PayPal can be a big contender if it gets its execution right. This is going to be a big market but it will require not only great tools but a lot of smart selling to consumers and merchants.

That’s what Google is really interested in: Taking a slice of the revenue that comes from increased Google Offers that can be redeemed through Google Wallet. It’s also one reason why the search giant is not taking a cut of the transactions. Instead, Google is trying to exploit the big opportunity in local advertising, taking NFC along for the ride. As an early incentive, Google is throwing in a $10 credit for users to try out Google Wallet this year.

Google Wallet in tandem with Google Offers is going to be a big venture in a market that will be hotly contested. Isis, a rival NFC payment system led by AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile is also preparing to launch early next year. I recently wrote about PayPal unveiling the first glimpse of its offline payment solution, which won’t leverage NFC. Square, a hot start-up, is also capitalizing on the opportunity with mobile card readers, an iPad cash register system and a digital wallet for consumers. The credit card companies themselves are also pushing their own digital wallet programs. This is going to be a crowded market and all these companies, along with a host of smaller competitors, are going to trying to make good on this opportunity in mobile payments.

Google Wallet, if you recall from the big unveil in May, is a joint venture with MasterCard, Citi, Sprint and First Data. Users can connect their MasterCard Citibank cards to Google Wallet or load up funds on to a prepaid card in Google Wallet from other credit debit cards.

Users can make payments at any terminal equipped with MasterCard’s contactless PayPass technology. Google has struck a bunch of partnerships with retailers and restaurants, who will support Google Wallet and incorporate their own loyalty programs into it. In some of these cases, retailers need to work to enable or upgrade their point of sale systems to handle Google Wallet integration. Partners include Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, Walgreens, Subway, American Eagle Outfitters, Peet’s and others.

There’s still many questions around Google Wallet. Google said it’s talking to other carriers and manufacturers about supporting Google Wallet and including NFC integration, but right now, there are no other Google Wallet handsets to announce. It’s also unclear when other bank cards will be supported directly in Google Wallet though Google said it is talking to banks about adding that functionality. But Google has pitched its wallet as an open platform that anyone can participate in, so the system will no doubt evolve over time.

Google still has a long ways to go to pitch consumers on the benefits of paying by phone. As we’ve noted, many consumers are happy paying with a card. Merchants also need to see a reason to step up and make an investment in next generation hardware that can support contactless payments. This is going to take a lot of selling and a good narrative for both parties. Google hasn’t embraced big marketing campaigns in the past though it has enlisted the help of actor Jason Alexander of Seinfeld fame to help tease Google Wallet. It’s going to need a lot more of that mojo to make sure Google Wallet can realize the company’s ambitions.

The startup then provides a separate “CFO App” that lets the financial officer, or the executive in charge, to approve and release payments. Both accounting manager and CFO apps are available on the iPad or via a secure web app. In turn, the bank used by the SMB gets a third web-based app that enables the financial institution to manage its MineralTree users.

Each of the three apps are linked to the startup’s payment server, which coordinates and manages all payment functions in the system, between customers, the bank, and payment service providers, etc. While it may sound like there are a lot of moving parts, in reality, the MineralTree solution provides an all-in-one, universal platform for all the payment channels an SMB or bank uses, whether it be check, ACH, wire, payment cards, PayPal, or mobile banking.

MineralTree’s payments platform is definitely niche, but for the 2.5 million SMBs currently operating in the U.S., this has the potential to solve a lot of problems inherent to the paper-based and snail-slow payment, approval, and accounting processes many are currently working with. It will be interesting to see if the team can convince the big banks that this is a workable solution for their SMB clients.

But perhaps most interestingly today, Zypr gives developers natural-language voice control for all services, regardless of provider or category.

Zypr is an ad-supported service and offers developers revenue-sharing opportunities.