nfc. mobile payments

Tired of splitting checks when eating out? Venmo greatly simplifies making payments to your friends using your Android or iOS device, for free.

It originally began as a text-message-based payment startup, but Venmo has been gaining steady traction among smartphone users looking for payment utilities without the use of NFC chips and external card readers and sliders. The mobile app allows its users to send money to their contacts without the hassle of dealing with differing indivudal bank or credit card services. 

The result is a seamless and universally accessible payment experience that … Read more

Visa is planning to roll out dual-mode chips in its infrastructure in an effort to step up mobile payment adoption. Meanwhile, it's deploying a mix of carrots and sticks to get merchants on board.

Specifically, Visa is aiming to prepare payment infrastructure for NFC (near-field communication) mobile payments. Google has pushed NFC payments, and other mobile phone players are aiming to turn your smartphone into a wallet. Visa will support EMV and NFC. EMV, which stands for Europay, MasterCard, and Visa, is a global standard for credit and debit payment cards. EMV has been popular abroad, but lags in … Read more

Visa is planning to launch a new type of digital wallet system that would let consumers pay for items online with just a single click.

Tapping into the growing mobile payments technology known as NFC (near-field communications), Visa's offering could also let consumers wirelessly pay for items at retail outlets through a mobile device equipped with the digital wallet technology.

The company is promising a number of benefits through its digital wallet. Consumers could order items online in one click using a single e-mail address or ID and password instead of having to plug in their mailing addresses and … Read more

Microsoft is expected to include mobile-payment technology in the next version of the Windows Phone operating system that will allow users to turn their Windows phones into an electronic wallet, according to a Bloomberg report.

The first handsets featuring the technology could appear later this year, according to the report, which cited two unidentified people described as familiar with the plans.

Microsoft representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.

With the move, Microsoft would join a growing list of software makers incorporating near-field communication (NFC) to turn consumers' smartphones into mobile wallets. The total … Read more

Google is partnering with MasterCard and Citigroup to deliver a mobile-payment service to Android smartphones, according to a report.

Citing anonymous sources, The Wall Street Journal reports that Google will allow people with debit and credit cards from the two financial giants to turn on an app and pay for a purchase from their smartphones. At no point would they need to take those cards out of their wallets to make a purchase.

Google plans to launch the program later this year, according to today's article.

The Journal report follows an earlier claim via Bloomberg that Google will deliver … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Later this year you'll be able to pay for clothes, taxi fare, and dinner with your mobile phone and leave your credit cards and cash at home.

Visa is planning a commercial rollout in the U.S. in the second half of this year of a service for allowing allow people to turn their existing smartphones into electronic wallets. It uses Near Field Communication (NFC) short-range wireless technology and includes real-time anti-fraud alerts and other features designed to protect consumers from fraud, Bill Gajda, global head of Visa Mobile, told CNET in an interview at Mobile World Congress 2011 … Read more

Barclaycard, Orange, and T-Mobile have set an early summer date to launch their near-field communications payment system, in which people can make purchases by waving a mobile phone near a payment station.

Near-field communications (NFC) systems require a lot of technology to be developed and deployed at the same time. Most obviously to a user, they require payment stations and mobile phones with processors that can communicate wirelessly. Less obviously, a back-end infrastructure is required to link the local payment with the necessary computers for processing it.

NFC chips are a rarity in mobile phones today, but they're an … Read more