It was a mighty quarter for eBay.

After the close of regular-hours trading on Wall Street Wednesday, the global commerce platform and payments leader reported that revenue for the first quarter (ending March 31, 2012) increased 29% to $3.3 billion, compared to the same period of 2011.

“The first quarter was a strong start to the year for us with momentum continuing in our Marketplaces, PayPal and GSI Commerce businesses,” said eBay Inc. President and CEO John Donahoe. “We believe that innovation in retail today is technology driven, and consumers are embracing smarter, easier, better ways to shop. We are enabling commerce in this new retail environment, supporting and partnering with sellers of all sizes and giving consumers worldwide the ability to shop anytime, anywhere, for whatever they want.”

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Throw another way to pay via mobile on top of the heaping pile of solutions that customers are being bombarded with.

But despite stellar competition in the space, the folks at Barclaycard may have a supreme solution to offer the masses.

On Thursday, Barclaycard announced the launch of Barclaycard PayTag, which bestows upon customers the chance to make payments with any mobile phone by simply affixing a Barclaycard PayTag to the back of their handset.

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Square’s valuation could easily top $4 billion after its next infusion of investor capital.

According to a report published Wednesday in All Things D, the mobile payments juggernaut will have quadrupled its worth in just ten months if that lofty valuation is attained.

While that would be astonishing for a three-year-old company, it’s important to note that negotiations continue, and that investors could ultimately value the company at a slightly more modest number.

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The world could be a dramatically different place by 2020. In only eight short years, cash and credit may be gone from our daily experience. In their place? Mobile payment platforms that will simplify and expedite how we pay for goods and services.

“As adoption of advanced mobile devices such as smartphones has exploded in recent years,” a new Pew study reads, “consumers have grown increasingly comfortable using their phones to transfer money, purchase goods, and engage in other types of financial transactions.”

Recent Pew Internet surveys find that one in ten Americans have used their cell phone to make a charitable contribution by text message, that more than one-third of smartphone owners have used their phones to do online banking services like paying bills or checking a balance, and that 46% of apps users have purchased an app using a mobile device.

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Juniper is “banking” on turning some heads with its newest report, aptly titled “Mobile Money Transfer & Remittances.”

According to Juniper’s latest research, the number of consumers using mobile handsets to make P2P (Person to Person) domestic money transfers will reach 340 million by 2016, up from 84 million last year.

The study in question reveals that following the success of Safaricom’s MPESA service in Kenya, both network operators and financial service providers in developing markets are increasingly using mobile distribution mechanisms as a means of enabling “underbanked” consumers to access financial services for the first time.

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Just as loyal coffee enthusiasts can’t get enough Starbucks, the folks at Starbucks can’t seem to get enough of anything related to mobile.

From mobile apps to mobile payment platforms, Starbucks is on the vanguard of mCommerce advancements that may soon be far more pervasive throughout the retail space than they presently are.

According to new details that have come to light this week, Starbucks has already processed more than 42 million mobile payments. That’s not bad considering that the program just began last year.

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Consumers are having a hard time trusting the biggest names in digital and mobile payments – a consequence that hits the burgeoning eCommerce industry potentially the hardest.

Late last month, MasterCard and Visa were forced to confirm a significant security breach effecting 1.5 million credit card holders.

The underlying problem, however, was born of what many believe was a hacking job that targeted payment processing firm, Global Payments.

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