In a guest post on Mashable today, Bill Zielke, senior director of Merchant Services at PayPal, divulged some interesting statistics in relation to his company’s mobile commerce and payments position.

PayPal has made a lot of progress recently on the mobile front, including integrating its ubiquitous payment technology in numerous apps and mobile services.  The company was one of the first to dive into mobile payments in a big way.  Because of it, PayPal is on track to process more than $500 million in mobile payments in 2010.  This is following dramatic growth, increasing nearly six-fold from $25 million in 2008 to $141 million in 2009.

Continue Reading

Tyfone is a relatively new startup that’s making movements in the red hot mobile payment and commerce sector, and today announced a $5M second round of funding to further its cause.

While many startups and even big-name financial companies are busy trying to compete in the emerging mobile commerce field, Tyfone stands out — at least to me — given its unique approach.  The company wants to use microSD cards to NFC-enable existing devices, rather than try and bake in the necessary technology to OEM devices.  Tyfone has designed the world’s first secure memory card with integrated smart card chip (secure element), an NFC chip, and a miniature antenna.

Continue Reading

In June we reported that the National Wildlife Federation had launched a mobile donation campaign to benefit creatures affected by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Today I’ve heard some of the results of the text-messaging, or SMS, campaign that go beyond raising funds.

While the NWF declined to give exact monetary figures, it has seen a significant increase in year-to-year donations  thanks in part to SMS. The organization saw a 53 percent increase in July 2010 from the previous July, and a 48 percent increase in June 2010 from June 2009, according to Mike Ricci, Vice President of Mobile Solutions for Merkle, the marketing agency that ran NWF’s fund-raising efforts for Gulf animals affected by the April 20 spill. He said that 35 percent of all money raised to help the creatures is due to the “Text WILDLIFE” campaign.

Continue Reading

MarketResearch.com has published an in-depth report and analysis on the mobile payments and technology sector entitled “Mobile Payment – Advanced Technologies (NFC), Strategies And Future Of Remote & Proximity Payment In The U.S.”

In it, the research firm details the technology associated with mobile payments — primarily NFC — which it says is in the nascent stage with an adoption rate of only 1.7%.  With the help of NFC technology, banks will be able to tap micro transactions made by cash, representing around 20% of the total transactions in the U.S., according to the research.  This will also help banks to capture the growing GEN Y population as well as the huge underbanked and unbanked population.

Continue Reading

Numerous mobile content providers settled several class-action lawsuits today that stemmed from alleged unauthorized charges on users’ wireless bills.

Flycell, Glomobi, Mobilefunster, Thumbplay, WebAMG Holdings, Glispa and Motricity were all named in the lawsuits, and collectively put the cases to rest by agreeing to settlements in the amount of $9M and attorney’s fees of up to $1.85M.  In a press release on the subject, all companies were clear in saying that “each of the Defendants has denied any wrongful conduct, and the settlement is in no way a judgment or ruling by the Court that the Defendants did anything wrong.”

Continue Reading

While the mobile commerce segment burns red hot, consumer protection groups warn of the potential security risks associated with using your mobile device as a payment method.

Consumer’s Union, the nonprofit testing and information organization which publishes Consumer Reports, called on regulators Tuesday to implement protective standards on mobile payments, and to educate consumers of the liabilities in using mobile payments as opposed to highly regulated traditional credit and debit cards.

Federal law currently protects credit or debit card holders from many charges associated with lost, stolen or misused cards, for example, but without industry-wide rules for mobile commerce providers, consumers could risk losing money through fraud, merchant disputes or processing mistakes, the group said.

Continue Reading

Mobile payments and mobile commerce in general is a hot topic these days, with nearly every major player making a move in some form or fashion.  Consumers want a seamless experience, and while we’re not there yet, the reality is right around the corner.

Diving deep into the world of mobile payments, Portio Research has published a comprehensive 110-page research report covering all facets of the technology as well as current and future trends.  Mobile commerce is one of the fastest growing segments of the mobile industry these days, with Portio pegging the worldwide face value of purchases made using mobile phones at $68.7 billion in 2009, reaching $633.4 billion in 2014.

Meanwhile, over the same period, the number of mobile users who pay for goods and services using their mobile phones will increase a staggering 600% from 81.3 million to 490 million, according to the report.  With these kinds of numbers, it’s easy to see why nearly every operator and stakeholder in the mobile ecosystem is scrambling for a mobile commerce strategy.

Continue Reading