While Klarna enables online merchants to offer the option to pay by invoice to their customers, another payment startup from Sweden focusses on innovative mobile payments. Stockholm-based iZettle provides a mobile payment service that allows businesses and individuals to accept credit and debit card payments using their iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.

The company was founded in April 2010 by Jacob de Geer and Magnus Nilsson and recently received €8.2 million in funding led by Index Ventures.

Availability

Since its launch in Sweden last summer, iZettle has attracted 25,000 active users and has grown the point of sale market in Sweden by roughly 15%. The service is also available in Denmark, Finland and Norway with more to come in 2012.

How it works

iZettle’s service combines a small card reader and a smartphone application. The card reader, which is attached to the bottom of the device, allows users to take payments from chip-enabled credit or debit cards. The service is compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS). No sensitive data is stored on the mobile device or the card reader, and all data traffic is encrypted. Unlike Square or PayPal Here iZettle is also EMV (Europay, MasterCard and VISA) approved and supports chip-enabled cards, which are very popular in Europe.

Pricing

iZettle has no set up fee or monthly fee. For each transaction iZettle charges 2.75% of the transaction volume plus €0.15 (including bank fees).

In a nutshell

iZettle provides an innovative solution for accepting credit and debit cards on the go. Unfortunately the service is only available in the Nordics so far.

Check out the video to see how iZettle works:

Irish mobile payment start-up boxPAY has opened on office in San Francisco, California and is now offering mobile carrier billing in the US and Canada.

boxPAY provides Premium-SMS and direct carrier billing solutions, enabling e-businesses to charge their customers for digital content through a mobile phone instead of a credit card. The company offers in-app, one-touch billing on the Android platform, as well as subscription billing in more than 40 countries.

“The move to North America was crucial to boxPAY’s global expansion because of the significant amount of cellular subscribers in Canada and the US. We needed to offer our merchants from all over the globe access to these 350 million+ customers, especially because of the fact that mobile users here are comfortable with mobile payments,” commented boxPAY’s Co-Founder Gavin McConnon.

Alternative payment provider TrialPay has raised more than $40 million in its latest round of funding by Visa, Greylock Partners, and others. The company plans to use the fresh money to expand into new markets.

TrialPay provides an advertising platform that enables customers to pay for goods and services by completing an offer (trying or buying a product) from an advertiser. For example, online players can sign up for a DVD rental service to get virtual currency in return. Offer-based payment services are particular popular in social games as they help developers to monetize users which are not willing to pay for virtual currency.

Check out the video how see how TrialPay works:

In the US, mobile card reader dongles that allow small merchants to process card payments via their smartphone or tablet have been available for some time now. UK-based e-commerce platform Powa, lead by Dan Wagner, has just announced to launch a service of this type in the UK called mPowa.

The features, and also the reader itself, seem to be a copy of the established card processing service Square, wich is available in the US only. According to the company’s website, the free card reader adapter, in conjunction with an app, will enable iOS, Android and BlackBerry devices to process credit card payments. mPowa will take a 0.25% cut (with a minimum of 25p) of each transaction. This is a very competitive pricing, although the fee for the acquiring bank is not included. In comparison, Square charges 2.75% for each swiped transaction including bank fees.

There is a huge market for mobile payment and with NFC being far from ubiquitous, accepting credit payments via a card reader and an app on a smartphone can become a worldwide success story.

Check out the video below see how mPowa works:

American Express (AmEx) partners with Lianlian Group, one of China’s biggest mobile payment providers, to extend the reach of its digital wallet solution Serve. The agreement will allow Lianlian Group to use Serve in products and services for customers in China. The US credit card giant has also made a $125 million investment in Lianlian Pay, a company of the Lianlian Group, according to TechCrunch.

The Lianlian Group has served approximately 300 million mobile phone accounts. It operates over a network of more than 300,000 business agents across China where customers can top up mobile phone minutes. Lianlian Pay offers mobile micro payment services such as mobile payment, mobile top-up, and mobile commerce services in China.

By entering the digital wallet and mobile payment space American Express is trying to expand beyond plastic cards. AmEx’s digital wallet Serve was launched in March and integrates various payment methods into one online account. The payment platform enables users to organize their money, buy goods and services and make person-to-person (p2p) transactions online and via mobile devices.

Over the last years, mobile payments have become a mainstream topic and e-commerce is more and more becoming m-commerce. Mobile payment service provider mopay has released its forecast of mobile payment trends in 2012. Spurring the growth of mobile payments, mopay predicts the following for 2012:

Increased Competition

Further consolidation within the market will add new levels of competition and offerings. In 2011, major global technology platforms began acquiring or establishing their own direct carrier billing services. As a result, other big players entered the mobile payments arena via acquisition and in 2012 each will try to differentiate themselves by adapting their current offerings to new technologies.

Global availability

Direct carrier billing adoption will increase tenfold as globally established solution providers outpace local and regional solutions, and will finally become 100% global. Smaller providers will likely be acquired and folded into the solution portfolios of larger players looking to add local and niche expertise in markets.

Adoption of direct carrier billing across various industries

Direct carrier billing will enter a wide array of industries and operate in new scenarios of application, including entertainment and sports ticketing, expanded reach into paid content sites, insurance and subscriptions.

Customized solutions

Merchant customization will extend to the transaction process to further increase consumer engagement and provide unique user experiences. Creating compelling and unique online user experiences is increasingly becoming the biggest differentiator for online merchants.

Consumer security concerns

Security will emerge as a major criterion for direct carrier billing solutions. In 2012, direct carrier billing will emerge as a true contender to replace credit cards for online transactions as the inherent security of the payment method will become known given the only information used is a phone number.

Direct carrier billing will become a catalyst for innovation and change within the mobile payments industry and more and more organizations across vertical industries will introduce direct carrier billing solutions in 2012. Ingo Lippert, CEO of MindMatics AG, the operator of mopay commented: “One thing is for sure: the direct carrier billing – and thus the mobile payments landscape right now – will not be the same one we’ll see at the end of 2012.”

In-game purchases are expected to reach $4.8B in 2016 – up from $2.1B in 2011 – according to a study released by Juniper Research earlier this week. The “Downloads, In-Game Purchasing & Advertising Strategies 2011-2016” report reveals that the increasing acceptance of in-game purchases and the ever-growing number of smartphones will push the sales of in-game items within the next five years.

The number of developers that will adopt the freemium model rather than the pay-per-download model is expected to increase, especially in the social& casual game area. Free games are downloaded in greater volume and create a larger user base. Users will more likely spend money on in-game items when they already have spent some time playing the game instead of paying upfront for a game they haven’t tried out. Also users get more familiar with the freemium model and the percentage of gamers who actually purchase items is expected to increase.

“An increasing number of games developers are finding the in-game purchase model attractive simply because it provides easy answers. Their piracy rate will drop and the game will see more downloads. However, while some games may generate significant revenues from in-game items, the model doesn’t work with all games and developers have to tread a fine line between encouraging purchases and appearing to be exploitative,” said report author Charlotte Miller.

Intuit today announced that its mobile GoPayment service, a credit card reader and a mobile credit card app for smartphones, will be available in Canada soon. For Intuit the launch in Canada is the first step of providing its GoPayment service on a global level. In addition, Intuit presented an updated version of its card reader.

The new GoPayment card reader will be available in both the U.S. and Canada. According to the company, the new design will prevent the reader from moving when swiping a card so that the card is read accurately the first time. In Canada, GoPayment will initially only be compatible with iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices, although the reader is compatible with Android devices as well.

With the expansion to Canada Intuit is one step ahead of its main competitor Square which offers a similar service in the U.S. “We’re taking two big steps forward today: announcing GoPayment in Canada, and releasing a new and improved card reader,” commented Chris Hylen, Vice President and General Manager of Intuit’s Payment Solutions division. “This is part of our strategy to offer GoPayment internationally and to innovate in ways that make it easier for our customers, in all markets, to never miss a sale.”

Facebook now allows developers on its platform to provide offers that pay out directly in the native in-app currency, according to a post on the Facebook developer blog.

This is a big change for developers because since July 2011 it was mandatory for all developers on the Facebook Canvas platform to process payments exclusively through Facebook Credits. Before the launch of credits, many app developers awarded users with in-app currency upon completing an offer. The problem back than was that the offers often where online scam (see the ScamVille series on TechCrunch). Facebook then introduced its own credits to provide a secure and trusted ecosystem for virtual good purchases. Also Facebook keeps 30% share of the transaction value.

For developers, the new possibility to reward users with the in-app currency can be an additional source of revenues because users are more likely to complete offers for a currency they are already used to. The new in-app offers are available via Facebook’s partner TrialPay, for more information see the official Facebook offers documentation.

Intuit has announced to launch a prepaid Visa card, making it easier for small merchants to receive payments. The GoPayment Card is intended for smaller businesses and individuals who don’t have a business bank account and still want to separate the money they make with GoPayment from their personal finances.

The prepaid Visa card is a part of Intuit’s mobile payment service GoPayment. It expands Intuit’s strategy beyond processing credit cards on a mobile device to offering a Visa prepaid account. The GoPayment Card has no signup or recurring fees and includes one free ATM cash withdrawal and one transfer of funds to a bank account each month. Chris Hylen, vice president and general manager of Intuit’s Payment Solutions division said: “The GoPayment Card adds new value to those using GoPayment. In addition to helping them get paid, we’re helping them make payments.”