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Iranian mobile operator MTN-Irancell teamed up with technology provider Etick Pars Intelligent Technologies Development and Bank Pasargad to demonstrate a number of NFC services such as payments and ticketing designed for the Iranian market, writes online publication NFCWorld.com citing Etick. Etick and Irancell will test a system that enables the recharge of prepaid accounts on NFC mobile wallets by either transferring money from bank accounts or making a cash deposit at a contactless point-of-sale terminal, Etick project manager Bahram Ehsandoust told NFC World. If required, funds may also be transferred back from mobile wallets to bank accounts. Using their NFC mobile wallet, end-users will be able to pay for retail purchases, for bus tickets in the cities of Mashhad and Ahwaz, where Etick runs the current smart card-based public transportation ticketing system, and for purchases from vending machines. At the same time, customer loyalty applications have been developed. Both NFC phones using a SIM as a secure element as well as Gemalto's Upteq N-Flex NFC device support the tested technology.

For SMBs, managing banking and payment processes is not as easy — or as secure — as it should be. So, coming out of stealth today is a Boston-based startup called MineralTree that is looking to fix both of these problems. Tomorrow, at the Small Business Banking Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, MineralTree will officially launch its first product: A cloud-based banking and payment solution designed specifically for SMBs.

Backing the startup in its mission to create an easy payment solution for small businesses is a cool $1.5 million in seed funding, raised from .406 Ventures, which has enabled MineralTree to develop its payments solution and make its initial hires, partnerships, and customer acquisitions. The most notable of which is the startup’s partnership with Silicon Valley Bank in Santa Clara, California — the first financial institution to implement MineralTree’s solution and offer it to its SMB customers.

MineralTree’s Accounting Manager app is a web-based add-on to the SMB’s existing accounting system that businesses can use to manage payables, including entering payment information, associate payments with backup documents, along with the ability to prioritize, recommend and submit payments to the CFO or business owner for approval.

Recently, American Express has been pushing its own internal digital commerce initiatives including the company’s 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. AmEx also announced a number of recent partnerships in the payments space include Foursquare, Facebook and even Zynga for personalized deals. But today, the financial company is reaching beyond its own internal payments projects to launch a $100 million fund to invest in startups and companies in the digital commerce space.

The digital commerce initiative will make investments in a number of areas involving the digital commerce experience, including loyalty and rewards, mobile and online payment management, fee-based services, security and fraud detection and data analysis.

“The payments industry is undergoing a fundamental change as the very nature of commerce is redefined,” he explains. “This fund is designed to encourage innovation in the payments space.”

Disruptive mobile payments company Square has just brought on a new investor-Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group. This comes on the heels of the company’s recent $100 million funding round led by led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers. The exact amount of Branson’s investment was not disclosed.

According to Square, Branson “took interest in Square’s rapid growth and novel technology, in particular its free hardware that allows anyone to accept credit card payments anywhere, anytime.”

Square has been on a roll of late, processing over $2 billion in payments annually and signing up 800,000 merchants to use its technology. This year, the company also signed retail deals with Apple, Best Buy, RadioShack, Target and most recently, Wal-Mart retail stores. And the company has added Kleiner partner Mark Meeker, Vinod Khosla and Larry Summers to its board.

It’s been a request by Starbucks aficionados for a long time and the day has arrived! Today, November 8th, 2011, marks the day that Starbucks updated their iPhone app to accept mobile payments in Canada. Version 2.1 is now available to download and brings iOS5 support and the ability to pay via your iPhone. All you have to do to get started is have a registered Starbucks card with money loaded in, upon cashing out the barista will scan the barcode that’s on your iPhone and your balance will be reduced. Good news for BlackBerry and Android users as mobile payments will be coming to you “in the coming months”.

The slow rise of NFC (near field communication) has given rise to the idea that you can pay for purchases by doing little more than getting out your phone and tapping it at checkout. While the technology is growing, a surprising number of phones lack this feature. Thankfully there are companies out there who see this issue, and are working to correct it by offering accessories that will add NFC to your smartphone.

The first is called SDpass. This product has launched in China and works with KJava and Android devices with a built-in microSD slot. The microSD connection fits in the available slot, and is attached to a small antenna, which receives the signal. This is currently on sale for around $25, and features 2GB of storage on the SD card.

Another option that will soon be on the market is an NFC-enabled iPhone case being developed in Taiwan. It isn’t much larger than an ordinary case, with most of the bulk on the bottom, due to the connector. Since the dock connector is blocked, they have added a USB port, which will allow you to charge and sync the phone. It is currently looking to get approval from local regulators before it can be used on the market. When it receives approval, it should sell for around $51. Unfortunately there is no word on when (or if) either of these will come to the US.

As the number of smartphone users continues to grow at an incredible rate, the challenge facing many retail brands is to continue to find ways of utilising smartphone technologies to effectively connect and engage with consumers. In recent months many retail brands have focused on smartphone features that integrate with social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare, to not only create something new and unique as part of the consumer journey, but to also take advantage of the fact that through successfully integrating social media with the overall brand experience, the likelihood of fans and customers “sharing” branded content and increasing brand visibilty in the social space is also increased; something that more and more companies are continually striving to achieve across multiple social media and online PR campaigns. Interestingly, something that an increasing number of people are now starting to talk about when looking at the ways smartphones are shaping consumer and brand day-to-day lives, is Near Field Communication technologies (NFC) and the possibilities that they present.

In short, Near Field Communication technology enables smartphone users to gain instant access to digital data from another NFC enabled handset or NFC tag simply by placing or waving their phone next to the NFC tag. Much like scanning a QR code or connecting via Bluetooth, the tag then sends content automatically between the handset and the tag - be it a Foursquare-style check-in at a record store or access to an exclusive in-store promotion.

Although at first this may not seem all that different to what we have seen recently with the introduction of QR codes, the possibilities we are seeing for NFC technology are far greater. So much so, that we're not only seeing an increasing number of smartphone brands integrating the technology into their latest handsets, we are also starting to see large named brands such as Google, Visa and MasterCard getting involved at what is a very early stage.

The space for mobile payments has heated up really fast over the past couple of years. One thing that we’ve started to see more of lately are applications that focus more on peer-to-peer payments versus something that you’d use to see a business. With PayPal implementing NFC, Dwolla providing software solutions to hardware problems and Venmo firmly in between all of it, the space is getting crowded quite fast.

Funds can be added to Clover via any credit card, but not directly from your bank or PayPal.

To withdraw, you can do immediate transfers to your PayPal, or a bank transfer in 2-3 days. Obviously, if you’re using PayPal, you’re going to get a fee tacked onto transactions. Bank transfers might have them as well, depending on your particular bank’s methods.

Do you remember the amazing game of Memory?

The aim of the game is to remember each card you flip over and find all the pairs.

In a similar fashion, Dave Brown, the design blogger at Holiday Matinee created “The Amazing Game of REcollection,” that turns the art of discovery into a fun game that rewards you for playing. For online shoppers in need of a brain exercise, the app is great. Not only does playing the app double as online shopping, but for each board completed, you are given 15% discount codes to various online shopping sites like Toddland, Photojojo, WeJetSet, Feelgoodz, and Holstee.

Des Moines is the home of mobile payments platform Dwolla. It is an interesting case study - local startup creating buzz within the community and getting retailers and consumers to actually use the platform. Dwolla has created a mobile payments ecosystem from the bottom up.

Within a 5-mile radius of Des Moines there are 500 to 700 business that are using mobile payments through Dwolla. The company works kind of like a payments version of Foursquare. You check at the register in the store using your phone and a pre-loaded Dwolla account.

it is likely that the company will be able to partner with banks and financial institutions in the near future to go straight from a bank account to the retailer.

Twitter has just announced a key engineering hire today. Adam Messinger will be joining the company as Vice President of Infrastructure Engineering.

Messinger was previously Vice President Development at Oracle, where he was responsible for managing the Oracle Coherence, Oracle JRockit, Oracle WebLogic Operations Control, and other web tier products. Prior to joining Oracle, he worked as a venture capitalist at Smartforest Ventures and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures.

At Oracle he was responsible, for the development Exalogic, Java SE, FX, ME, and Card, Coherence, Virtual Assembly Builder, Middleware Lifecycle and Applications Lifecycle. Prior to his time as a VC, he founded Gauntlet Systems Corp., which was acquired Borland.

Verizon Wireless, AT&T and T-Mobile are planning to invest more than $100 million to take on Google with Isis, the companies’ mobile payment project, according to a report.

Isis, which the three carriers announced last November, is a mobile payment system that uses near-field communication. The three companies hope that it will be a viable competitor to Google Wallet, a NFC solution from the search engine giant that is rolling out in the market this year.

According to Bloomberg, the three carriers have earmarked $100 million for the venture. Previously, no funding had been announced.

BankSimple has announced a few things, including a name change. The company is now called “Simple” and has started rolling out its first invites to the service.

Using Simple, you can make purchases with a Simple Visa® card, pay bills, earn interest, set up and track savings goals, and much more. Simple replaces your bank, but we are not a bank. You use our mobile and web apps and speak with our customer relations team when you have questions. We partner with chartered banks that hold your deposits in FDIC-insured products. They take care of money, we take care of customers, and together we’re delivering a new type of financial experience that’s easier, faster, and friendlier.

With a focus on customer service, Simple aims to make the banking experience a better one for consumers, focusing on both web and mobile experiences. To date, online banking hasn’t been the best experience, with companies like Mint helping you manage your money more effectively.

TORONTO — Canadians who find themselves short of change for that Venti Skim Gingerbread Latte can now pay for their Starbucks beverage with the scan of an iPhone.

The Seattle-based company announced Tuesday that an app for Apple's mobile phones can now handle purchases, provided a customer has preloaded an account with money to spend.

The account can be funded within the app with a credit card.

Come November, the world's second largest mass transit company will let its riders pay for trips by waving their cell phones at the terminal. The Deutsche Bahn, Germany's main railway operator, began implementing its Touch&Travel mobile payments system in 2008 and expects it to be ready within two months.

The system will rely on near field communications (NFC) chips contained in customers' mobile phones to handle the payment transactions for each trip. Alternatively, riders can pay with their phones by scanning a QR code at the beginning and end point of their ride.

Touch&Travel mobile apps are available for iPhone and Android-based smart phones. "In addition to using NFC or barcodes to provide location information, smartphone apps can use GPS or the user can type in a location ID number," writes NFC World. Riders will be billed for their transit usage at the end of each month.

Mobile payments company Boku is letting French consumers pay for virtual goods and services via their handsets.

The company is partnering with French carriers Bouygues Telecom and SFR. The deal will reach 32 million French consumers.

“France is a top priority for us in international markets, and we decided we wanted to tap into it in 2010,” said Ron Hirson, cofounder/president of Boku, San Francisco.