Visa and La Caixa make Barcelona contactless for MWC
A new deal between Visa and Spanish bank La Caixa will see contactless payments rolled out across Barcelona.
One million NFC-enabled cards will be issued, 500 ATMs upgraded and 15,00 new point-of-sale terminals installed around the city.
PayPal mobile payments surge to $4bn
In late 2009, PayPal president John Donahoe indicated that he believed online payments should account for 20% of global payments, even though, at the time, they accounted for just 5%. His goal: find ways to grow that number.
There are a lot of ways of doing that, but none may be as promising as mobile payments.
Mastercard throws weight behind EU Green Paper on mobile payments
In response to the European Commission’s Green Paper on electronic payments, published today, Mastercard is the first major payment company to officially lend support to the campaign.
The goal of the paper is to expand electronic payments to help European businesses grow, and consumers to shop easily and safely online, instore and via their mobile devices.
Visa enables NFC payments in LG, Samsung and RIM phones
Visa has announced that its NFC payment system is now certified for use in LG, Samsung and RIM smartphones.
The payWave application allows consumers to use their mobile to pay for goods at the point-of-sale.
Online retailers prepare for 'Mega Monday'
Retailers are predicting that today will be the biggest online shopping day of the year as consumers ramp up their Christmas spending.
Visa, which labelled the annual shopping event ‘Mega Monday’, is expecting £303m to be spent online in the UK using its cards.
This equates to £3,500 per second, a 12% increase on 2010.
Visa launching P2P payments, but is it a decade late?
Visa's motto may be "More people go with Visa," but when it comes to payments between people, Visa and other major credit card associations are largely absent.
The market for P2P payments is instead dominated by newer players, such as PayPal, which has been around for less than a decade and a half. And more recently, a slew of startups is looking to create new markets and take advantage of untapped niches.
In mobile payments, credit card companies might be a third wheel
If there's one thing major mobile carriers don't like to do, it's work together. But that appears to be what they're doing in the mobile payment space. Considering how tight the market is, that's a move credit card companies might not be too happy about. Because while credit card companies may need carriers to get into mobile payments, they may also soon learn those same carriers don't need them.
MasterCard courts developers, but should it?
Online payments behemoth PayPal thinks developers are key in its quest for world domination. Late last year, it launched a portfolio of new APIs that PayPal hopes will give developers the ability to create applications that extend PayPal's footprint into markets in which it believes its payment solutions could be better utilized.
But if the credit card associations have their way, PayPal will have to compete for the best developers.
Visa gets into iPhone payments — fees and all
Companies large and small have been getting into mobile this year. And one market that looks particularly promising is the mobile payment space. Considering that everyone from Twitter founder Jack Dorsey is interested in making a mark on mobile payments, it's curious that no major credit card company has debutted a product yet.
That's changing with Visa's new In2Pay protective iPhone case. The iPhone sleeve turns Apple's smartphone into a credit card machine. Considering Visa's established dominance in the payment space, this product could help position the company in mobile. But it does not eclipse the fact that there is still a big space for innovation if someone can do it all cheaper.
NBC has a new social strategy for the Olympics. But old prime time habits die hard.
With the impressive dedication that NBC and its top advertisers have taken to the internet for this Olympic games, some have gone so far to dub the 2010 Winter Olympics the "Social Games." But there is one small snag in NBC's rush to move toward real-time. The network still isn't showing video of major sporting events in real time — online or often even on television.
In the 2008 games, it was hard enough to supress live commentary online. But now, with Olympians, viewers and even NBC keeping up a running Olympic commentary, it's even harder to hold onto precious video content until prime time. It also doesn't help that NBC is giving spoilers with its live blog coverage.
