RFID tag information can be communicated in real-time to the enterprise database through Wi-Fi, CDMA, GSM or Bluetooth connections associated with PDAs and Smartphones. The SDiD Card allows for safe and secure product and client information storage, updates and processing.
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Wireless Dynamics releases RFID read/writer SD card - 0 views
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The SDiD Card also supports Near Field Communication (NFC) technology allowing consumers to use their devices to access product and entertainment information, compare prices and perform transactions. Consumers can make contactless payments, redeem coupons and points and receive instant promotions and rewards. NFC is a combination of contactless identification and interconnection technologies developed by Philips and Sony. NFC enables short-range radio frequency (RF) communication between personal electronic devices. The NFC based SDiD Card allows PDA and Smartphone users to access product information or entertainment content such as pictures, music and video clips by waving their mobile devices in front of a smart poster or kiosk. Users can also exchange such information with other users through NFC or mobile connection of their devices.
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Wireless Dynamics offers two SDiD Card versions, the SDiD 1010 and the SDiD 1020. The SDiD 1010 is a NFC-based SD Card supports ISO14443A standard, NFCIP-1, Philips MIFARE tag and Sony's FeliCa tag. It is ideal for contactless payment, advertising and promotional applications.
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The SDiD 1020 RFID based SD Card supports ISO 15693, ISO 14443A standards, Philips I-Code SLI and Texas Instruments Tag-it HF. The SDiD 1020 can be customized for industrial, enterprise and government applications.
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Both the SDiD 1010 and 1020 Cards operate in the 13.56 MHz frequency range, over a distance of typically a few centimeters. The SDiD Card supports PDAs and Smartphones with SD Card slots and an SDIO interface based on Microsoft Pocket PC OS 2002, Windows Mobile 2003, and Palm OS 4.1.
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Wireless Dynamics Inc. is introducing the SDiD Card, the first RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) Reader/Writer SD (Secure Digital) Card in the industry. Users can now utilise their Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) and Smartphones as portable RFID terminals. Applications include reading and writing RFID tags for the health-care, pharmaceutical, retail logistics, and other industries.
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Mobile payment apps work to make wallets obsolete - 0 views
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Late last month, I ordered the beverage at Sightglass Coffee in SoMa, grabbed it from the counter and walked out without cracking my wallet.
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Nobody chased me down because, when I first approached the cafe, the Card Case app on my iPhone detected the store's perimeter and automatically switched on. It broadcast my picture to the barista, who could then tap my pre-entered credit card number to cover the bill. The phone never had to leave my pocket.
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It felt a lot like buying in the one-click environments of iTunes or Amazon, which is to say it didn't feel like buying at all. Square, the San Francisco startup behind the app, has come close to replicating the frictionless online buying experience in the brick-and-mortar world.
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"What we wanted to focus on was removing the mechanics of the transaction and building the relationship between the merchant and customer," said Megan Quinn, director of products at Square, which occupies space at the Chronicle building at Fifth and Mission streets.
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But, of course, Square isn't the only company working hard to crack the nut of mobile payments - and they all face considerable challenges.
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Google, Visa, MasterCard, VeriFone, eBay's PayPal division and a joint venture among AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile are attacking the problem in various ways. In most cases, those businesses are going a different direction than Square, employing near field communications (NFC) technology that allows people to tap their phone near a terminal to make a payment.
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Done right, mobile payments can accelerate the monetary exchange, while streamlining the issuance, acceptance and storage of receipts, coupons and loyalty cards. Down the road - once consumer and retail use reaches critical mass - the hope is that people will be able to leave their wallets at home altogether.
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But there's a chicken and egg paradox: Customers won't start using mobile payments in great numbers until they're accepted in great numbers, and retailers don't have a huge incentive to roll these systems out until customers are clamoring to pay this way.
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There are only about 150,000 retailers nationwide that accept payments over MasterCard's NFC-based Paypass readers. Google's Wallet payment app works with this system, and industry rumors suggest the next iPhone might as well.
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Square, which has so far focused on small merchants has about 20,000 that accept Card Case.
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Another big challenge is human inertia. To get people to download apps, key in credit card numbers and transform a habit they're very comfortable with, mobile payments will have to represent more than a little improvement over what they do today.
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"You have to offer them a compelling reason to do it," said David Mangini, an IBM executive focused on mobile payments. "At a very, very minimum ... it has to be just as convenient, just as broadly accepted and just as safe."
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One of the big knocks on basic NFC payments is that tapping a phone near a reader doesn't represent a whopping improvement over swiping a card. In addition, merchants have little to gain by replacing one expensive payment infrastructure with another, some observers say.
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"It doesn't upset the status quo," said Nick Holland, senior analyst at Yankee Group. "It doesn't really change the original business model and it all goes through the same rails."
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Receipts, deals Google argues that its NFC-based Wallet app is a big step forward for a few reasons. A single tap replaces not just the payment, but also the exchange of receipts, coupons and loyalty points.
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On top of that, Google believes it's tying together the on- and off-line retail worlds, by allowing consumers to move the deals they spot on the Web into the Wallet app, where they can redeem them in the real world. Google Wallet also advertises nearby deals when users open up the app.
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"For the consumer, it's really about tap, pay and save," said Osama Bedier, vice president of payments at Google. "On the merchant side, it's about closing the loop on that advertising."
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This is a critical goal for Google, too, as it experiences slowing growth in online advertising - 93 percent of commerce still occurs offline, according to Forrester Research
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For its part, Square steers around the limitations of NFC - as well as the various roadblocks of wireless carriers and credit processing networks - by leveraging the powers of the Internet to process payments. The credit card information is stored online, in Square's secure cloud, not on the device itself.
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Square, which started by providing small attachments that allow merchants to swipe credit cards using mobile devices, acts as the merchant of record for its customers. This allows the businesses to quickly start accepting credit cards without going through the usual drawn out and expensive process of applying for a merchant account. But it also clearly puts more risk onto Square's shoulders.
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Square turned on the hands-free feature on its Card Case app, which takes advantage of the so-called geofencing capabilities in the latest version of Apple's mobile software, in an upgrade to the app in November. The feature is only available on Apple devices to date
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Quinn said "automatic tabs" represents an obvious improvement over traditional payments and it's quickly driving user growth (though the company doesn't disclose user numbers).
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In addition, retailers have seen revenue leap as much as 20 percent since integrating the app. It drives traffic by highlighting nearby establishments, and the ease of payment encourages customer loyalty, the company says. Tips also tend to go up.
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Is it safe? But the question that has dogged Square - and indeed hangs over much of the mobile payment space - is security.
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Early last year, VeriFone CEO Douglas Bergeron blasted Square - its attention-grabbing young competitor - for what he called serious security flaws. In an online video, he argued that any bad actor could use the Square dongle and an easy-to-create app to skim credit card numbers.
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Square CEO Jack Dorsey, also the co-founder of Twitter, defended the company's security practices in a letter. He also highlighted the inherent insecurity of credit cards, noting that any sketchy waiter is equally free to steal your information.
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Meanwhile, Quinn argued that Card Case is actually more secure than credit cards because it only works if you're in the location and your face matches the picture that pops up on the merchant's screen.
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The radio technology behind NFC has taken some security lumps, too.
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Late last month, a security researcher at a Washington, D.C., conference used a wireless reader she bought on eBay to highlight some weaknesses of radio frequency identification, Forbes reported. She pulled the critical data from an RFID-enabled credit card through a volunteer's clothing, encoded that data onto a blank card and put it to use onstage.
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Holland said that any new form of payment inevitably creates new forms of fraud. The challenge will be to educate consumers and merchants about how to minimize the risks.
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"Clearly, having a device always with you and connected is a very inviting target for criminals," he said. "Any safe is only as strong as the key."
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How Visa Plans To Dominate Mobile Payments, Create The Digital Wallet And More | TechCr... - 0 views
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It’s no secret that credit card companies are shelling out big bucks and aggressively forming partnerships and deals to start cashing in on the mobile and digital payments innovations currently taking place. American Express, which recently debuted its own digital payments product Serve, has been particularly aggressive on the partnerships front, striking recent deals with both Foursquare and Facebook. Mastercard has bet on NFC with a partnership with Google for Google Wallet and bought online payments gateway DataCash for $520 million last fall. And Visa has made a number of major moves in the mobile and digital payments space of late; including making an investment (and taking on an advisory role) in disruptive startup Square, buying virtual goods payments platform PlaySpan for $190 million, and acquiring mobile payments company Fundamo for $110 million. We sat down with Visa’s Global Head of Mobile Product Bill Gajda and the company’s Head of Global Product Strategy, Innovation and eCommerce Jennifer Schulz to discuss how the financial company is planning to compete in both mobile and digital payments.
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In May, Visa announced its plans for the digital wallet. We’ll explain this initiative later in the post, but part of this platform would allow you to access your loyalty points, credit cards and more from your mobile phone at the point of sale. And the third pillar of Visa’s mobile strategy is incorporating value-added services like real-time alerts, contextual services, and offers at point of shopping based on where you are.
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Gajda explains that Visa is licensing mobile payments applications PayWave for integration with the ISIS wallet and the company is actively looking for other ways to integrate with NFC into the company’s mobile payments structure.
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Of course, some aren’t so bullish on NFC, notably eBay (who owns PayPal) CEO John Donohoe, who in a recent earnings call said merchants refer NFC “not for commerce.” And odd statement considering PayPal just dipped its toes in the NFC pool with support for Android.
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Gajda tells is, “I think for some people NFC will replace the actual physical credit card but it will be a long time before NFC replaces all payments.” He believes that we are going to start seeing more traction by end of this year but says the capability of “taking credit cards and putting them on mobile phones will represent the long tail” in payments. But he adds, “the pieces are in place for NFC to take off.”
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The second part of the Visa’s mobile strategy involves the digital wallet and the mobile web. Gajda says that as e-commerce ramps up on mobile phones, there is a need for one-click, simple username and password checkout experience in a transaction being made on a mobile device. That’s an area where PayPal has been working hard to dominate in but Visa sees room for other players. Should we expect a PayPal-like, one-click mobile payments technology coming from Visa soon? Perhaps, the company hasn’t been afraid to enter PayPal’s territory in the past, launching a peer to peer payments service earlier this year.
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Gajda tells us that the biggest challenge of mobile payments in the current market the massive amount of fragmentation in the mobile industry. He explains that with all of the various mobile operating systems, specific manufactured phones, applications and more, keeping up with pace of innovation on the development side is a major challenge for Visa.
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Visa actually tested a partnership with retailer The Gap earlier this year which alerted customers via SMS of discounts in stores near them. Gajda tells us Visa is working with a number of other retailers and banks on similar deals which will be announced soon.
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Gajda says there are a number of other factors at play in the mobile payments place that need to be highlighted when talking about mobile payments. International is a huge growth area in mobile payments. He tells is that outside the U.S., there are a large number of people who have mobile phones but don’t have banking relationship or credit card. In fact, he says there are 2 billion people in world that have phone, but don’t have a bank account or credit card.
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In these markets, Visa’s goal is to bring prepaid accounts, purchasing power and other financial services to basic phones. These could include topping up a mobile phone with airtime, buying transit tickets, peer to peer payments. And this goal was the mean reason behind the purchase of behind the $110 million purchase of Fundamo. The company’s platform delivers 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.
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MOBILE Gajda explains that there are three prongs to Visa’s mobile payments strategy. One of these is NFC, and focuses on payments using a mobile phone at a physical store. For background, NFC (near field communications) enables people to make transactions, exchange digital content and connect electronic devices with a simple touch. As we’ve seen with Google Wallet, Android phones such as the Nexus S are being built with NFC chips, making your cell phone a mobile wallet. Visa recently joined the ISIS network, a NFC mobile payment network that is a joint venture formed by AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon. ISIS will soon launch in a number of markets, including Utah and Texas.
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Connecting with the small business world that don’t yet use credit cards or are new to the system is another area where Visa feels there is strong potential, especially with mobile payments. That’s why the company invested in disruptive mobile payments company Square and took an advisory role in the company. Gajda says that the power of Square is that it is enabling small businesses and independent workers such as doctors, designer and other merchants to start using credit cards and grow their businesses. It would make sense for Square and Visa would somehow work to harness the power of their partnership (As of April roughly two-thirds of transactions using Square’s payments service were through Visa credit cards.), but it’s unclear what the two companies will reveal any new co-produced products soon.
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Schulz explains that the idea behind the wallet is that consumers want control over their wallet and want to have payment information and access available to them at all times. She believes that the digital wallet will click to buy incorporated on retailers’ sites is essential to the future of e-commerce in both the U.S. and emerging markets.
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DIGITAL Visa’s digital payments guru Schulz outlined her strategy for digital payments at the company, which centralizes around the creation of the digital wallet. Schulz says that because of the fact that e-commerce is being more easy and convenient with customers, especially with m-commerce, the underlying payments infrastructure has to evolve.
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And Visa’s answer to this is a new digital wallet initiative. Here’s how it works. Users will have an account, and they can add their credit card numbers (and cards from other credit card companies such as American Express and Mastercard). Visa is partnering with a number of financial institutions to offer this product to their customers.
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Users can also load their loyalty points and rewards cards, as well as organize their shopping lists. Schulz describes it as a “wallet in the cloud.” But she says the key to the success of the wallet is a seamless, one-click payments experience for the consumers. So Visa has partnered with a number of large-scale retailers (which will be announced soon) to integrate what Schulz refers to as a ‘new acceptance mark’ on a merchant payments page.
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So there will be a button you can click on, which will prompt you to sign-on and then will sync your digital wallet with the purchase in your shopping cart. So for example, imagine you had a camera in your cart, and Visa offered a 20 percent off at camera’s purchased at BestBuy, the wallet would sync and show the discount in your cart. The same works for loyalty points and more.
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Visa competitor American Express is also working hard to innovate both at the large retailer level, as well as among smaller retailers, with GoSocial.
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She compares the digital wallet offering to “two-hand clapping.” ” You can have a digital wallet,” Schulz explains, “but you need a merchant solution of click to buy, and Visa’s going to transform that experience.” And Schulz highlights another recent acquisition, Playspan, has helping drive a simplified commerce experience, a.k.a. click to buy, within game or within app.
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Of course adding another checkout experience to online retailers’ sites can be a complicated and time-consuming process. But that’s where Visa’s $2 billion acquisition of CyberSource comes in. CyberSource is said to process about 25 percent of all e-commerce dollars transacted in the United States, and operates e-commerce for hundreds of thousands of retailers. Schulz says this relationship has helped speed up the pace of implementation.
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Creating the digital wallet, both on the mobile and web platforms, is no easy task. Visa has a name for itself in the credit card industry but the fact is that the brand still has to attach innovation to itself in order for people to take these products seriously. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why Google’s Mobile Wallet news created waves, even though NFC technology is in its early stages.
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But he says that there is still so much room for innovation around how we pay with mobile phones. “With the rise of smartphone usage, we are already seeing a lot of innovation around commerce,” he explains. “It’s inevitable that this will extend to the payments around the sales in mobile commerce.”
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While Visa, American Express and others are looking to capitalize on the changes taking place in the payments industry, it is a challenging effort. Local commerce is a big part of this, and everyone is trying to find a way to close the redemption loop. But e-commerce, amongst larger retailers, is also a multi-billion dollar market that Visa hopes to continue to play in with products like a digital wallet. And in-store payments, whether that be through NFC, Square or others, represent another market.
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I’ve been talking to a number of executives of payments companies and founders of innovative payments startups, and while their objectives are different, they all seem to agree on one thing. It’s early and there is still much more innovation were going to see in the next few years in the online and mobile payments space.
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American Express To Release An API For Digital Wallet Platform Serve; Focuses On Data A... - 0 views
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Over the past year, American Express has been making several key payments partnerships with technology companies and launched its take on the digital wallet, Serve. Serve integrates a variety of payment options into a single account that can be funded from a bank account, debit, credit or charge card. The company has also landed a number of lucrative carrier partner deals for Serve. Separate from Serve, American Express’ recent partnerships in the payments space include Foursquare, Facebook and even Zynga for personalized deals. We sat down recently with Harshul Sanghi, American Express’ new VP of Enterprise Growth Group to chat about Serve, the digital wallet and how the company plans to dominate the payments space.
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Sanghi, who was formerly the Managing Director of North American venture activities for Motorola, joined AmEx in September. His focus is on further developing the Serve brand and forming these partnerships that help expand the card member base into new segments.
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Sanghi explains that while every payments company (including even Google) and credit card company is releasing their own version of the digital wallet, it’s whats in the wallet that’s truly important. “The wallet that has the most brand partnerships is what customers are going to gravitate too,” he says. And this wallet needs to tie in seamlessly with loyalty programs, and virtual currencies, which is why AmEx bought virtual currency monetization platform Sometrics a few weeks ago. And the wallet needs to store offers and deals as well so that consumers don’t have to carry around coupons or discounts to a store.
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While commercial partnerships are definitely key to the broad appeal of Serve, part of Sanghi’s master plan in furthering Serve’s presence is a connection with developers. “It is difficult for mobile payments startups to scale without partnerships with some of the major financial partners,” he explains. “There are a lot of regulation in terms of moving money, and fraud management and we want to be the partner mobile payments startups think of in this space.” Sanghi says that in first half of next year, American Express will open up the Serve platform to developer community.
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Another area where American Express is focusing its efforts when it comes to Serve is on data. “Data is going to be a differentiating factor in the payments space,” Sanghi explains. A personalized experience is going to be key in providing the digital wallet that consumers flock to, he says. And it’s not just purchasing data that American Express is looking to mine.
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Intent data, structured data and unstructured data will all play a part of delivering a personalized payments experience. That means analyzing things such as Tweets, Twitter sentiment, your social graph, Facebook updates and more to deliver targeted offers. “The magic is going to be in marrying structured data and unstructured data for results in real-time,” Sanghi says.
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With 100 million card members, American Express’ data opportunities are massive. But privacy is a key concern in this data mining, says Sanghi, and the company has to be sure they aren’t abusing these issues, especially as it relates to financial information. For example, the company’s Facebook partnership, in which AmEx cardholders can link their cards to their Facebook accounts to receive deals, is an opt-in experience.
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Across the board, American Express is going to be announcing many more commercial partnerships including those with gaming and telecommunications companies. Serve will also soon enter new geographies, says Sanghi, which will also be a key part of the platform’s growth in the next year.
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Of course, American Express has competition in the digital wallets space, and companies like PayPal and even Google are also looking to compete. And fellow credit card companies such as Visa have major ambitions to dominate the digital wallet. Regardless, all of these companies need to fine-tune their offerings so that the benefit to consumers is clear. The battle to become the de facto digital wallet is just starting, and which payments provider that will create the technology that keeps consumers engaged has yet to be determined.
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Finextra: PayPal aims to become your digital ID; unveils new bank, vendor, currency par... - 0 views
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PayPal has taken the wraps off its single sign-on digital identity service for online shopping, PayPal Access. The move comes as the San Jose-based payments operator unveils a series of new partnerships with a host of banking technology suppliers at the BAI Retail delivery show in Chicago.
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PayPal Access is designed to simplify the checkout process by enabling the company's 100 million account holders to sign in at participating retailers' sites with just their PayPal user name and password.
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The initiative is a key element of X.Commerce, a new division of PayPal parent company eBay, that aims to provide a common set of APIs for building consumer-facing online merchant services.
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Commenting on PayPal Access, Damon Hougland, general manager of identity & informatics, X.commerce, says: "Results from early adopters show that consumers are more willing to engage with merchants because they can use their PayPal account to check out instead of having to deal with the hassle of entering name, address and payment information. This has huge implications for mobile commerce and merchant sales among new and existing customers."
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Separately, PayPal is introducing a series of new relationships with banking technology suppliers as it bids to make it easier for banks to incorporate its services into their offerings. This morning it announced a partnership with NCR and S1 that enables people to make real-time person-to-person payments from cash machines.
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Other vendors lined up for the PayPal treatment include mobile outfit mFoundry, account opening specialist MeridienLink, community banking vendor BanVue, and airmiles operator ezRezSoftware. The latter partnership envisages the creation of an application that would enable consumers to convert their airmiles points into cash for spending on the Web.
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Dan Schatt, general manager of financial innovations at PayPal, explains: "With this partnership, airline and other reward programme members will have access to the entire 'catalogue' of merchandise the Internet offers by using their rewards anywhere PayPal is accepted."
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Set for take-off in 2012, United Airlines' frequent flyer programme, will be the first rewards scheme to allow PayPal account holders to use miles as a currency.
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How does Netswipe work? | Jumio - Netswipe - 0 views
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How does Netswipe work? Camera + Credit Card = Secure payment Jumio’s patent pending technology turns the camera of a computer or mobile device into a card reader. The most secure form of online payment possible. Step 1 Scan your card with your webcam or phone camera. Actual card needed. (online card present transaction) Step 2 Enter security (CVV) code to complete transaction. You’re done. Netswipe – the online card present transaction, a new technology product from Jumio.
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How Netswipe uses the webcam as a credit card reader Your webcam or phone camera is turned on during the payment process to scan your credit card and verify its authenticity. Hold the credit card in front of your camera as illustrated below. Jumio’s Netswipe scans and verifys your card details. No details are stored upon completion of the payment and the camera will be turned off automatically.
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Intuit Enables Mobile Credit Card Payments on the iPhone | TechCrunch - 0 views
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Today Intuit has announced that GoPayment, a mobile applications tailored to process credit card payments, is available in the App Store for the iPhone or iPod touch.
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The app essentially turns the iPhone or iPod touch into a credit card terminal that can process payments, track past charges, and generate electronic receipts for the customer. Rather than wait for checks to clear or invoices to be paid, transactions can be processed on the spot via mobile connection. Card information can be inputted manually, or synced via a bluetooth enabled card swipe device. Intuit also assures that information is never stored on the handset, and that data is protected during transmission with financial industry standard technology.
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t will definitely be a while before people feel comfortable swiping credit cards through a mobile device, but as large, reputable companies like Intuit enter the space the stigma surrounding mobile payments may slowly wane.
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The service seems to be designed for enterprise use, with a centralized online service center where user accounts and transactions can be monitored and managed. An entire staff’s payments can also be synced with QuickBooks for organizational purposes. Intuit states in the press release that motivation for the product stemmed from the observation that more and more entrepreneurs are relying on iPhone’s to manage businesses.
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Today Intuit has announced that GoPayment, a mobile applications tailored to process credit card payments, is available in the App Store for the iPhone or iPod touch.
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The app essentially turns the iPhone or iPod touch into a credit card terminal that can process payments, track past charges, and generate electronic receipts for the customer. Rather than wait for checks to clear or invoices to be paid, transactions can be processed on the spot via mobile connection. Card information can be inputted manually, or synced via a bluetooth enabled card swipe device. Intuit also assures that information is never stored on the handset, and that data is protected during transmission with financial industry standard technology.
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The service seems to be designed for enterprise use, with a centralized online service center where user accounts and transactions can be monitored and managed. An entire staff’s payments can also be synced with QuickBooks for organizational purposes. Intuit states in the press release that motivation for the product stemmed from the observation that more and more entrepreneurs are relying on iPhone’s to manage businesses.
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It will definitely be a while before people feel comfortable swiping credit cards through a mobile device, but as large, reputable companies like Intuit enter the space the stigma surrounding mobile payments may slowly wane.
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NFCNews | NFC a 'sleeper hit' at CES - 0 views
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While it may not be the flashiest technology on display at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, near field communication has garnered enough attention to make it the “big sleeper” of CES, according to InformationWeek.
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Among the 80-inch 3D televisions and quad-core tablets, you’ll find numerous high-end smart phones on display at CES – many of which are equipped with NFC, reports InformationWeek.
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The technology is also present in several outside-the-box applications at CES, like Continental’s NFC digital car key solution and Intel’s new NFC-enabled Ivy Bridge computer processor.
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While payments is the hot ticket for NFC at the moment, InformationWeek sees much greater potential in peer to peer content sharing services, as well as easy information dissemination through NFC tags and posters – both for retailers and other agencies.
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PayPal unveils NFC Android-to-Android payments - Tech News and Analysis - 0 views
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PayPal today unveiled a new peer-to-peer payment functionality that allows Android users to pay each other by tapping two near field communication (NFC)-enabled devices together. The feature, which follows an earlier contactless PayPal payment tool using Bump Technologies, shows how PayPal is gearing up for NFC as part of its larger push on mobile payments.
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The payments work through a PayPal widget that allows a user to request or send money. A user enters the transaction information and then taps their phone up against another phone also equipped with the same app. After the phones buzz together, the recipient can decide to send or receive money by entering a PIN number.
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PayPal’s new mobile payment service will only work currently in the U.S. with the Samsung Nexus S from Sprint and T-Mobile but will expand to other Android phones that include NFC functionality in the future. The transactions utilize an encrypted token and don’t access the secure element inside the NFC chip, where payment credentials reside. It appears this is set up for just peer-t0-peer transfers, which is still a big part of PayPal’s mobile payments business.
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he company said it is now on pace to do $3 billion in mobile payments this year though much of that is person-to-person transfers using the PayPal app, which don’t yield much revenue for PayPal. Users do not have to pay a transaction fee when payments pull from bank accounts or an existing PayPal balance.
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In many ways, this is similar to personal transfers PayPal has previously enabled through its mobile app using Bump Technologies. Users are able to send money back and forth by bumping their phones together, a solution that doesn’t rely on NFC. It’s unclear how much of that may have happened through bump payments, so I don’t know how significant person-to-person NFC payments will be. It’s nice to be able to make a payment to someone by just touching phones but, again, it’s not like many PayPal users don’t have that ability now.
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Shimone Samuel, Product Experience Manager for PayPal Mobile, however, said the NFC solution has fewer steps than bump payments and can be activated even when only one person has launched their widget. Bump payments require both people to have their PayPal mobile app open. He said PayPal turned to NFC because it simplifies P2P payments.
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“What I’m looking for is what is simplest and easiest for customers and NFC is the simplest way to request money,” he said.
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The bigger opportunity is in enabling real-world payments as retail and local merchants, something PayPal is still set to unveil later this year. That will be a much bigger deal because it will signal how PayPal will counter moves by Google and its NFC payments initiative, as well as other challengers like Square and the carrier consortium, Isis project. Samuel declined to comment on how PayPal will use NFC specifically at point of sale but he said the company takes every opportunity to learn from its products.
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PayPal needs to figure out how to tap that market for offline purchases, which is much bigger than than pure online transactions where it’s excelled. So it’s nice that PayPal has enabled some P2P NFC payments, and it’s showing that it’s getting up to speed on NFC. But we’re still waiting to see the real fireworks.
IN BRIEF / Technology; Vodafone Explains Accounting Practices - 0 views
GigaOM's Mobile Payments 25 - Mobile Technology News [06Sep11] - 0 views
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Richard Branson invests in Square mobile payments [08Nov11] - 0 views
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Sir Richard Branson4 clicks has personally invested an undisclosed amount in SF mobile payment start-up Square. This investment comes shortly after a $100 million round of investments, and before Square tries to launch globally.
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When asked about the investment Branson said, “I’m very passionate about helping people start and grow successful businesses, and Square is an incredible technology that inspires and empowers everyone to be an entrepreneur.”
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Branson loves the fact that anyone can go to Square’s website and get a free credit card reader to plug into their phone or tablet and start processing payments. It is also hard to ignore the massive growth of the company. In only a year Square has shipped out 800,000 card readers, and just recently passed processing $10 million dollars a day in payments. They are currently processing $2 billion in transactions annually.
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Branson joins a long list of investors in the company which recently closed a $100 million round of Series-C financing. It should also be noted that credit card company VISA is also an investor in the mobile credit card processing company.
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Even with a diverse group of investors the start-up still has an uphill battle ahead of itself, seeing as Google is also trying to enter the mobile payment segment. Even though Square’s services do not completely overlap with Google’s Wallet service, they are pretty similar. Square has an early head start seeing as Google Wallet is still in the testing phase.
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Stocks Cashing In on Mobile Payments (AXP, EBAY, GOOG) [27Aug11] - 0 views
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The race to replace your wallet with mobile payment options is on.
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Consumer demand for smartphones, combined with near-field communication, or NFC, technology that enables everyday purchases, is fueling the shift from credit card swipes to mobile payments. With smartphone sales expected to increase 50% this year, mobile payment services are in a mad dash to capture market share, and the growing competitive space has sparked strategic partnerships among big names.
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Meet the contendersMobile payment sales in the U.S. are expected to increase at a 68% compounded annualized growth rate over the next five years. It's no wonder that big players like American Express (NYSE: AXP ) and Google (Nasdaq: GOOG ) want in on the action.
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American Express recently took the spotlight when the company signed a deal with Verizon Wireless allowing mobile users to make purchases on Verizon devices using a streamlined process. As the largest U.S. wireless carrier, Verizon reaches a broad audience. The partnership comes at the right time as American Express opens its own digital payment software called Serve, which will come pre-installed on all Verizon smartphones and tablets.
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In an apparent bid to boost sales of Android phones, Google launched Google Wallet, a mobile payment platform for Android users. How it works: Google's Android platform will support NFC technology (more on that in a minute) capable of turning your phone into your wallet, letting you store digital credit cards on your Google Wallet account. Just walk into a store, pick up a product, and tap your phone on the payment reader. Google's service will support the payment networks of Citigroup's (NYSE: C ) Citi, MasterCard (NYSE: MA ) , and First Data.
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eBay's (Nasdaq: EBAY ) PayPal has dominated the online payment space for over a decade, but as the competition gets tough and the focus shifts to mobile devices, the company will need to make big moves to maintain its head start. One such move was initiating Titanium+Commerce, a mobile payment program that lets small businesses design their own smartphone apps for processing PayPal transactions.
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Another emerging competitor in the mobile payments space is ISIS, a mobile commerce network founded as a coalition among AT&T (NYSE: T ) , Verizon Wireless, and T-Mobile. Similar to Google Wallet, ISIS will run on any NFC-enabled device offered by the three carriers. Payment network partners will include American Express, Discover, MasterCard, and Visa (NYSE: V ) .
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Why this will workFor one thing, smartphones have conquered dozens of industries by gradually replacing everyday items like pocket calendars, road maps, and cameras with their ever-evolving apps. I have no doubt the move to mobile payments will quickly make credit cards a thing of the past. Who will finish the race with the most market share? The company that can get the most merchants to adopt its service. At this point, ISIS shows the most promise because merchants will benefit from a solution offering multiple wireless carriers.
Gamification Is Here to Stay - Gabe Zichermann - Technology - The Atlantic [29Aug11] - 0 views
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HTML5 App Delivery Network Strobe joins Facebook - The Next Web [08Nov11] - 0 views
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Strobe, an App Delivery Network that facilitates getting HTML5 apps up and running on various platforms and app stores, has joined Facebook, CEO Charles Jolley announced today.
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Jolley is also the creator of the SproutCore JavaScript framework for web apps that is used to quickly build web apps in the browser. It’s used by companies like NPR, Second Story and Sports Illustrated, as well as being popular among Facebook app developers.
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Before Jolley created SproutCore, he was responsible for Mobile Me app development at Apple.
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Strobe is described as “an App Delivery Network that solves the problem by enabling you to combine what the Web and native apps do best, using cutting-edge tools and technologies. It’s the quickest and easiest way to get your HTML5 applications up and running, on the web and in app stores.”
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As SproutCore is remaining an independent product, at least for now, it seems like Facebook is after the technology or skills offered by the Strobe team. This appears to be an effort by Facebook to bolster its web and mobile experience and syncing services between them.
PayPal to announce 1,000 new jobs in Ireland | Technology | guardian.co.uk - 0 views
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BBC News - Secret net Tor asks users to sign up to cloud services - 0 views
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The Tor developers are calling on people to sign up to the service in order to run a bridge - a vital point of the secret network through which communications are routed. "By setting up a bridge, you donate bandwidth to the Tor network and help improve the safety and speed at which users can access the internet," the Tor project developers said in a blog.
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"Setting up a Tor bridge on Amazon EC2 is simple and will only take you a couple of minutes," it promised.
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Users wishing to take part in the bridging project, need to be subscribed to the Amazon service.
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It normally costs $30 (£19) a month. However, Amazon is currently offering a year's worth of free storage as part of a promotion, which Tor developers believe their users will qualify for.
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Amachai Shulman, chief technology officer of data security firm Imperva believes that cloud services could have a big impact on Tor. "It creates more places and better places to hide," he said.
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Tor is also used by people wanting to share images of child abuse. Hacktivist group Anonymous recently launched Operation Darknet which targets such abuse groups operating via the network. "There is an ugly face to Tor," said Mr Shulman. "Studies suggest that most of the bandwidth is taken by pirated content."
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Imperva research estimates that there are currently "a few thousand" exit nodes on Tor - the points at which communications reveal themselves on the wider internet.
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Starbucks Launches Mobile Payment in the UK [25Nov11] - 0 views
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Leading coffee chain Starbucks is bringing its mobile payment system to its chain of 700 stores in the UK, allowing owners of the Apple iPhone to make payments for their purchase straight from their handset.
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The mobile payment service is already up and running in the US, and is scheduled to launch in the UK from January 5th, when the mobile app should be launched in the Apple App Store.
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The company claim that customers using the service reduce transaction time by around 10 seconds, which soon adds up when you are serving hundreds of customers a day. Customers who use the app can still get Starbucks freebies and other promotions added to their account.
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The app makes use of barcode scanning, and links customers' Starbucks card to the application. To make a payment, users simply launch the Starbucks app, select card, and scan the barcode across scanners in the store.
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Brian Waring, Vice President of Marketing and Category for Starbucks in the UK, said: “Customers want to be served quickly, but fewer want to use cash. We wanted to find a way for them to pay in the quickest way possible. Because our customers want it, we have created our own custom built mobile payment technology rather than waiting for Near Field Communication technology which is currently not widely available. We are always thinking of new ways to add value to our customers and give them more reasons to choose Starbucks.”
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The app, when it launches, will work on the Apple iPhone and the Apple iPod. A version for the Android platform is expected later in 2012.
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BNZ launches swipe phone wallet trial - Technology - NZ Herald News [25Nov11] - 0 views
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Bank of New Zealand has launched a trial of a phone with an embedded chip that is able to make payments by swiping the phone against a card reader.
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The three month trial is being done by 44 BNZ and Vodafone staff using a Samsung Galaxy S2 phone with a Near Field Communication (NFC) chip, similar to one used by Google in its Google Wallet trial in America.
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The trial is using a system set up in conjunction with Visa and Paymark, BNZ said.
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"Think of what you carry around in your wallet today - credit and debit cards, loyalty cards, building access cards - and imagine most of that functionality on your smartphone."
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The payment card's data is stored on a secure chip embedded into the SIM card inside an NFC enabled phone, which means triallists can replace their regular plastic payment card with their phone.
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"What we're testing here is the viability of a true, mobile wallet that will eventually allow people to replace multiple pieces of plastic with functionality embedded inside their phone. It's going to make smartphones even smarter," said Paul Tait, BNZ's Head of Channels Innovation.
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"This just the beginning of what we can bring to Vodafone customers," said Zac Summers, Vodafone's Chief Strategy Officer.
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Triallists can use an app on their smartphone to view their transactions, which are updated in real time.