Sprint Enters the Mobile Payment Race, Starts Own Mobile Wallet Service

U.S. mobile carrier Sprint is working on its own NFC-based mobile wallet service called “Touch”. It is noteworthy that Sprint was the first big mobile operator in the U.S. to support Google’s mobile payment solution Google Wallet while AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile enforced their own mobile wallet ISIS. It is unknown if Sprint will continue to support Google Wallet in the future. This could be a major drawback for Google as it seems unlikely that mobile phones will support more than one NFC-based mobile wallet service at the time. Read more…

Mobile Payment and Rewards Network LevelUp Raises $12M from Highland and Google Ventures

SCVNGR, creator of the mobile payment and reward app LevelUp raised $12 million in funding from Highland Capital Partners and Google Ventures (among others) to support the U.S.-wide expansion. Customers can use the LevelUp app to pay with their mobile phone by linking their credit or debit card to the app. The app generates a unique QR code that is scanned to pay and redeem offers at a participating store. LevelUp has been growing fast and is now available in in 8 U.S. cities with more than 3,000 participating merchants. Read more…

Online Payment

• Online payment company Dwolla wins a Best of Show Award at FinovateSpring, a conference about innovative financial and banking technology. Dwolla is a web based payment platform that allows users to send, receive, and request money from other users. The service is free for micro-transactions, for transactions above $10 Dwolla charges a flat fee of $0.25. The company received the award for their new FISync technology that enables users to integrate their bank accounts directly with the Dwolla platform.

Mobile Payment

• Mobile wallet service ISIS, a joint venture between the U.S. carriers AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, add support for American Express cards. ISIS is a mobile wallet payment service based on NFC technology. Read more
• MasterCard starts its new PayPass Wallet service. Customers can store their payment credentials in the digital wallet and use the service to pay online and in stores. Tap-and-go in-store payments can be made using a NFC-enabled smartphone and the PayPass Wallet app. Read more

Cards

• Citi Ventures, Citi’s venture arm, invests $3.3M in online payment and ID verification company Jumio. Jumio’s Netswipe solution turns a webcam into a credit card scanner. The camera analyzes and verifies the physical credit card in real time. Card holders only have to approve the transaction by entering the security code number and the additional security and authentication mechanism 3-D Secure of Visa and MasterCard. The service supports Visa, MasterCard, JCB, Diners Club and American Express credit cards. Read more

Mobile payments have been one of the main topics at this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. The congress is organized by the GSM Association (GSMA), the global industry association of mobile operators and related companies. It is not just about presenting the latest mobile devices; it is also about showing the future of mobile technology.

Mobile Payment

Mobile Payments are broadening outside of digital goods and services: Carrier billing provider BOKU announced a partnership with MasterCard to expand its payments technology to cover e-commerce and retail point-of-sale. The new BOKU Accounts service allows subscribers to make payments online, in-app, and in-store anywhere MasterCard is accepted. At the same time Facebook is starting to cut out mobile payment providers of the transaction cycle. Facebook’s CTO Bret Taylor announced during his MWC Keynote that Facebook is partnering with major mobile network operators (including AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Orange and Telefónica) and will provide its own carrier billing solution. At present Facebook uses third party providers such as BOKU or Zong to process mobile payments.

Traditional financial service companies are going mobile:

• Visa and Vodafone announced at the conference to join forces and develop a mobile payment platform based on Visa prepaid accounts.
• Money transfer giant Western Union (in cooperation with mobile operator WIND) is going to launch a mobile money transfer service in Italy.

Innovative mobile payment services presented their latest developments:

• iZettle’s mobile payment solution that allows users to accept card payments using their iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch gains traction and is expanding into tree new countries.
• Mobile payment start-up boxPAY launched and presented an in-app payment service for Google’s Android platform.

Near Field Communication

Near field communication (NFC) services are gaining momentum and have become one of the trending topics at the MWC this year. The GSMA has recently published a set of industry specifications to enable the development of secure and ubiquitous mobile NFC services.

• Smartcard and digital security companies such as Gemalto and Giesecke & Devrient showcased their NFC-services at the MWC.
• The Logic Group and ViVOtech announced to work together to enable customers to shop via their NFC-enabled smartphones.
• Mobile payment joint venture ISIS has teamed-up with BarclayCard, Capital One, and Chase.

US mobile commerce platform ISIS, a joint venture between AT&T, T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless has selected Gemalto to supply its Trusted Service Manager (TSM) solution to secure ISIS’s mobile payment service.

ISIS is a mobile wallet payment service based on NFC technology. Consumers will be able to pay, present loyalty cards, and redeem coupons all with a tap of their smartphones. A first trial is announced to launch in mid-2012 before the roll out across the US. Gemalto is a provider of digital security services such as electronic passports and identity cards, contactless payment cards, as well as subscriber identification modules (SIM) in mobile phones.

Ryan Hughes, Chief Marketing Officer of Isis commented: “We selected Gemalto for their long-standing relationships with financial institutions and mobile operators, which includes experience in securely provisioning services over the air and issuing sensitive financial information to the consumer.”

Isis, the joint venture between AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, announced that HTC, LG, Motorola Mobility, RIM, Samsung Mobile and Sony Ericsson will introduce NFC-enabled mobile devices that implement Isis’ NFC and technology standards.

Isis is the carriers attempt do to enter the emerging mobile payments and mobile wallet market. The multi-manufacturer support will help Isis to compete against its rival Google Wallet. Currently, Google Wallet is only available on Sprint’s Nexus S 4G. Dale Sohn, president of Samsung Mobile, comments: “The key to widespread adoption of mobile commerce will be the broad availability of NFC-enabled handsets.” For Consumers without NFC-enabled smartphone, Isis is working with DeviceFidelity to add NFC functionality to the mobile device.

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