Mobile payments company mopay is launching a new technology, mopay call, that allows online merchants to allow consumer to bill purchases to their land line phone accounts. Like competitors Zong and Boku, mopay’s platform doesn’t require users to have a credit card or bank account to make a micropayment. Users enter their cell phone number, reply to a text message and then all virtual charges are automatically charged to the user’s monthly cell phone bill.

With mopay call, mopay is one of the first of the mobile payments platforms to allow users to charge a payment to a landline bill as opposed to a cell phone bill. Here’s how it works. After selecting mopay call during an online check-out process, mopay’s payment screen will prompt the consumer to authorize the purchase through a short, automated call. The payee will need to call a given number via the land line number that is being charged, and will be asked for a special code that mopay gives the payee in the online check-out process.

After authorization, mopay places the charge to the land line phone account and the purchase is completed. The charge later appears on the consumer’s phone bill along with voice charges. mopay call does not require any registration and is available to all consumers who have access to a land line phone.

German-based Travian Games is using the new service and seeing traction with use of mopay call, says Ingo Lippert, mopay’s CEO. Lippert says that while the payments process through a landline is popular in Europe, the idea of landline charging is new in the U.S.

But one of the barriers to the adoption of mobile payments are the high fees that mobile carriers charge to the payment systems (which are then passed on to the publisher or developer). These fees can range between 10% to 50% of the purchase price, which is a hefty amount in transaction fees. But Lippert says that landline operators generally charge 10% less in fees, which could be good news for the space. Mopay, which is cash flow positive, has raised $15 million Euro and currently reaches over 3 billion people worldwide through its platform.

The question is are landlines dead? As mobile coverage improves, many people and households rely solely on their cell phones, negating the need (and extra cost) for a landline. It’s unclear if this will really be able to take off in the U.S.

Hanno presenziato alla cerimonia ed assistito alla firma dell’accordo Adolfo Urso, Vice Ministro Italiano allo Sviluppo Economico e Gao Hucheng, Vice Ministro Cinese del Commercio.

Per le due aziende erano presenti Ossama Bessada, Chief Operating Officier di Wind, e Ziad Shatara, Chief Technology Officer di Wind, David Wang Managing Director di Huawei Italia e Roberto Loiola, Vice Presidente di Huawei Western Europe.

Il nuovo Innovation Lab di Roma è finalizzato alla ricerca e all’implementazione di tecnologie e servizi all’avanguardia nel campo delle telecomunicazioni fisse e mobili e nelle comunicazioni convergenti. Queste attività porteranno a continue innovazioni a beneficio sia di Wind sia dell’intero gruppo Orascom Telecom.

La partnership prevede il coinvolgimento di Huawei in quattro distinte aree tecnologiche per garantire a Wind un’alta qualità di servizio, migliorando al tempo stesso le performance operative:

- SingleRAN: Wind sarà il primo operatore italiano ad adottare la piattaforma Huawei integrata multi-standard, premiata di recente, per la trasmissione di servizi broadband 2G e 3G. Il progetto riguarderà 7 regioni in Italia e i nuovi standard di trasmissione adottati saranno HSPA+, LTE e IP ready. Huawei, inoltre, si occuperà dell’intera gestione del progetto, compresa l’acquisizione e la costruzione dei siti e la progettazione della rete;

- Rete di trasporto SDH basata su protocollo IP di nuova generazione, una soluzione volta ad offrire una maggiore efficienza e a migliorare la qualità del servizio;

- Soluzioni per centrali di transito per la rete Core di Wind: la struttura potrà in una prossima fase anche supportare i servizi VoIP e altri servizi più avanzati basati su IMS;

- FTTx: Huawei affiancherà Wind nel migliorare i servizi di banda ultralarga tramite la tecnologia Point to Point, dimostrando la sua affidabilità per uno sviluppo più ampio della fibra in Italia.

Ossama Bessada, Chief Operating Officier di Wind, ha dichiarato: “Siamo soddisfatti di aver consolidato ulteriormente la partnership con Huawei. Il nostro obiettivo comune è offrire servizi di banda larga mobile e banda ultralarga fissa di altissima qualità sia alle imprese sia ai consumatori italiani”.

David Wang, Managing Director di Huawei Italia, ha dichiarato: “Siamo orgogliosi di collaborare nuovamente con Wind per il consolidamento della loro posizione nel mercato italiano delle telecomunicazioni, tramite la fornitura di tecnologie e servizi altamente innovativi volti a migliorare l’infrastruttura della rete Wind in Italia”.

Google wants to turn televisions into giant monitors to allow people sitting in their living rooms watching their favorite show to be able to click a button and surf the Web. The plan hopes to make more money selling ads.

Although the company began selling ads for television programs three years ago, revenue has paled in comparison to what it rakes in with computer run ads — $24 billion last year, mostly from Internet ads.

The TVs are expected to go on sale beginning in the fall in Best Buy stores. The televisions will only be available in the US this year, and will gradually expand into other countries. Pricing won’t be announced until later in the year.

The attempt to bring Internet into living rooms has frustrated nearly every major company in the technologies industry for years. If Google and its partners can market the idea of the new “Google TV” correctly, it will make for huge successes into the $70 billion TV advertising market.

“I think this is going to be the biggest improvement to television since color,” Intel CEO Paul Otellini told The Associated Press.

Google’s main focus was to integrate an Internet-style search box into sets which could then look for video and other info on television as well as the Web. Sony will build devices to launch this fall while Intel will provide its small Atom processors to run the devices.

During a demonstration of the new technology at a Google conference for 5,000 software programmers, things didn’t go quite as Google had planned.

So many people in the audience were using the conference’s wireless access network that Google had repeated issues trying to show off how its technology supposedly toggles seamlessly between the Web and television. Google finally pleaded with attendees to disconnect their smartphones from the network during the showing.

Once it had enough bandwidth, Google was able to conduct a series of Internet searches in a drop-down box that appears at the top of TV programs. The search results showed content related to the TV program being watched.

For example, a person watching a telecast of a sporting event can shrink the program into a small “picture-in-picture” box while looking up statistics or other material about the current game on TV. Viewers can also make search requests by speaking into a remote that runs on Google’s Android operating system.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt described the potential of the Internet TV as mind-boggling, although he acknowledged it might be difficult for some consumers to understand at first. That’s one reason he said Google decided to team up with Best Buy, which offers a “Geek Squad” to deal with complex technology.

“You have to actually see (the Internet TV) to get excited about it,” Schmidt said at the news conference.

Other companies have had little success trying to turn televisions into Internet portals over the past ten years. But Google and its partners believe they have developed a system that will make Internet TV more simplified and very appealing.

Consumers who have already spent hundreds and thousands of dollars on flat-panel TVs will be able to purchase a set-top box made by Logitech or a Blu-ray player from Sony that will plug into the TV to send and receive data. Both devices will contain the same software and microprocessor as the new TV sets.

Sony will make the TV sets that will stand out from other flat-panel sets on the market, as it will be the first to use microprocessors from Intel. The Atom chip will be the brains of the operation. Google will provide the software, including Android and the Chrome Web browser. Logitech is also supplying a special remote control and wireless keyboard.

Best Buy will have exclusive rights to sell the devices and DISH Network TV will integrate its service into Google TV.

Based on the track record of past attempts to bring Internet to television, the new effort is hardly a sure thing. Although executives said previous attempts failed because they dumbed down the Web for television, were closed to participation by others, and made people choose between using the Web or television.

“It’s much harder to marry a 50-year-old technology and a brand new technology than those of us in the brand new technology industry thought,” Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt acknowledged to the audience of developers.

The NFC (Near Field Communication) technology company has produced a microSD solution for mobile devices and is now attempting to target the iPhone market using a protective case that will cover the iPhone and incorporates a built-in microSD card with Visa’s payWave software pre-loaded.

Currently, it is expected to be released this summer and will be compatible with the iPhone 3G and 3GS. The information appeared via a Press Release on the MarketWatch website before being pulled.

Apple has been rumoured to be testing NFC technology in prototype iPhones, so it may well be that the iPhone 4G/HD may come with the required technology built-in without the need for a protective case when it’s announced, expected to be in early June.

Visa has teamed up with mobile payment technology firm, DeviceFidelity to create the In2Pay protective case for iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS that turns your handset into a credit card. The In2Pay case uses Visa’s PayWave contactless payment system where you hold your credit card up to a scanner, and your credit card information is transmitted from a small chip embedded in your card.

Instead of a chip, DeviceFidelity’s In2Pay iPhone case features a removable MicroSD card that stores and transmits your credit card information. To pay with your phone you activate a password protected iPhone application, and then hold your phone up to a scanner at any location that accepts contactless Visa payments.

DeviceFidelity and Visa have said consumer trials for the system are scheduled to begin before the summer, but pricing and availability for the In2Pay case has not been announced.

While turning your phone into a digital wallet is common in other parts of the world, most notably Japan, the technology has yet to catch on in the United States largely due to privacy concerns. Mobile payment, as well as contactless payment systems in general, rely on wireless systems that transmit your credit card information over the air. Some of these systems use radio-frequency identification, which has a fairly large broadcasting range, and the security of RFID has been called into question on several occasions . But a newer wireless communication technology called near field communication (NFC), which used in Visa’s payWave system , is considered more secure and has a shorter broadcast range. DeviceFidelity says its In2Pay MicroSD cards also use an “anti-sniffing” security feature that disables the SD card’s transmission abilities when it is not in use to prevent unauthorized access of your credit card information.

Mobile smartphone payment has become a hot topic among smartphone developers and technology companies in recent months. In March, First Data partnered with Tyfone , another mobile payment system company, to create a MicroSD card system for credit card payments similar to DeviceFidelity’s In2Pay. And startup company Square , brainchild of Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, has introduced a new mobile payment service that uses a small credit card reader a user carries with them along with an iPhone application to make credit card payments. Square allows users to pay with their plastic at participating locations, as well as make payments between individuals for things like personal debts or items sold at a garage sale or through Craigslist.

IL COMMERCIO ELETTRONICO TORNA A CORRERE + 15% NEL 2010

Su base annua cresceranno sostanzialmente tutti i principali comparti merceologici, tra cui si distinguono l’Abbigliamento (+45%), le Assicurazioni (+21%) e il Turismo (+19%). Proprio il Turismo si confermerà ancora il primo settore con oltre il 50% del valore dell’eCommerce in Italia. L’export è previsto in crescita e supererà finalmente 1 miliardo di €, prevalentemente grazie al contributo di Turismo e Abbigliamento. Crescerà del 6% lo scontrino medio arrivando vicino a quota 230 €.

Rimane comunque prevalente in Italia la vendita di servizi (67%) rispetto alla vendita di prodotti (33%), in contro-fase rispetto ai mercati esteri. Questa la fotografia tracciata dall’Osservatorio Netcomm – School of Management del Politecnico di Milano giunto alla nona edizione.

Milano, 18 maggio 2010 – Torna a correre l’e-commerce in Italia e cresce a doppia cifra nel primo trimestre 2010. Il totale delle vendite realizzate da siti italiani registra, infatti, un incremento del 16% toccando quota 1.425 milioni di euro (con una stima di chiusura dell’anno a 6.505 milioni di euro). Crescono tutti i comparti, dall’Abbigliamento (+51%), all’Informatica ed Elettronica (+23%), al Turismo (+23%), all’Editoria, musica ed audiovisivi (+19%), alle Assicurazioni (+18%), al Grocery (+17%).

The GSMA welcomes the publication by the INTERPHONE study group of the results for the combined analysis for glioma and meningioma in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

In the press release announcing the paper Dr Christopher Wild, Director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) said:

‘An increased risk of brain cancer is not established from the data from Interphone. However, observations at the highest level of cumulative call time and the changing patterns of mobile phone use since the period studied by Interphone, particularly in young people, mean that further investigation of mobile phone use and brain cancer risk is merited.’

This publication presents results from the combined analysis of the national data collected as part of the 13 country INTERPHONE project coordinated by the (IARC). As these diseases are rare, large numbers of subjects are needed for accuracy.

Dr Jack Rowley, GSMA Director for Research and Sustainability said:

‘The overall conclusion of no increased risk is in accordance with the large body of existing research and many expert reviews that consistently conclude that there is no established health risk from radio signals that comply with international safety recommendations. The results reported today underscore the importance of utilising complete and thorough data analysis before reaching conclusions.”

The mobile phone industry takes all questions regarding the safety of mobile phones seriously and GSMA has a strong commitment to supporting ongoing scientific research (www.gsmworld.com/health). This particular project is being funded by the mobile phone industry jointly with governments and national health agencies in a way that ensures the complete scientific independence of the work carried out.

Dr Jack Rowley added:

‘The researchers warn against focussing on the extreme values and that interpretation should be based on the overall balance of the evidence. It is also important to note that the international safety recommendations for mobile phones were reviewed and confirmed in September 2009 as protective of all persons against established health risks.’

By way of background, tumours of the nervous system are rare and account for less than 2% of all malignancies (about 175 000 cases per year worldwide). Gliomas are a type of brain tumour arising in cells of the brain. Meningiomas arise from cells that make up the covering around the brain. The incidence of brain or central nervous system cancers in the UK is about 7 per 100,000 people.

For further information please contact:

Claire Cranton +44 7885 839 427 or press@gsm.org

UnionPay Logo

China UnionPay card network operator has launched an initiative to organize a group of national banks, wireless operators and handset makers to form a mobile payments industry alliance in a move to make the sector be more standardized and regulated.

According to the official statement members will be working to promote mobile payment business adopting the international standard on contactless communication defined by the ISO.

China UnionPay believes the platform will bring many benefits to firms in industries such as the bus, metro, water, electricity and gas, cinema, petrol, hospital, commercial retail and many more.

The group consists of 18 banks, including Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agriculture Bank of China and Construction Bank of China, mobile operators China Unicom and China Mobile, manufactures like Nokia and Lenovo and several card and chip card producers, terminal operators, system integrators and academies

Avea and Garanti Break New Grounds in the World

Mobile payment solution, which is the joint project of Avea and Garanti and is developed with the supports of Mastercard and Gemalto, eliminates the obligation to buy NFC technology compatible mobile phones and makes the current phones of subscribers compatible with NFC technology thanks to the new SIM cards. Therefore, subscribers will be able to easily and rapidly make payment at thousands of points in Turkey and the world having contactless payment terminals via their mobile phones without any need to change their mobile phones and will utilize the advantages of payment solutions.

Garanti Bank and Avea expect to issue 100,000 SIM+antenna NFC add-ons this year

In addition, NFC based mobile payment solutions, which have been only presented to mobile phone users within the framework of pilot applications until today, will be offered to the general use of all subscribers by July with the cooperation of Garanti and Avea for the first time. Subscribers will be able to make their mobile phones compatible with contactless payments and many new applications to follow this with the SIM cards with they will buy from Avea dealers by this date for the first time in the world.

With this innovation, Avea subscribers will make contactless payments with the Trink feature of their mobile phones. Thanks to this new technology having two types as credit and pre-paid, customers will be able to select the card they will make payment during their shopping. The new generation NFC, which will be used in public transportation vehicles (bus, subway, ship, train) in cities where Trink is used in transportation, will also be valid in many places like building entrances, stadiums, food and beverage automatic machines. Avea subscribers will also be able to load KGS feature to their mobile phones like other applications loaded to mobile phones. Moreover, with the “Campaign” feature, they will win discounts and gifts immediately by using the digital coupons to be sent to phones.

Making a speech in the press meeting held in the Cardist Fair, which is the heart of payment systems sector and is closely monitored by telecommunication sector, in order to promote the application, Avea CEO Erkan Akdemir said that it is one of the targets of Avea to break new grounds in mobile technologies and add value to the lives of its customers, since the first day of its establishment and added, “Near Field Communication Technology’ project, on which we have been working together with Garanti Bank, one of the leading brands of the sector, for nearly 1 year, is a part of our vision…”

Akdemir said, “This project we have effectuated together with Garanti Bank breaks new grounds not only in Turkey but also in the world… In the NFC works performed before, mobile phones having NFC feature had to be used and number of models was very restricted. However, we placed the needs and demands of our customers at the focus of our project and developed a new SIM card together with our business partners. Our customers will be able to utilize this technology without changing their current mobile phones by July. They will be able to use their mobile phones as Bonus Trink. In addition, mobile phones having Avea lines will also be able to replace identity cards for building entrances and exits, tickets for stadiums and concerts and even food cards and KGS passage cards.”

Garanti Payment Systems CEO Mehmet Sezgin said that their target as Garanti Bank is to “eliminate cash money” and therefore they develop innovative products and services to include payment systems much more in our lives. Sezgin said that they provided a new dimension for Bonus Trink, which provides fast payment for TL 35 or less, together with Avea by “breaking new grounds in Europe”.

Making a speech, Mehmet Sezgin said, “Now, our customers will load credit and pre-paid cards or both of them to their mobile phones. Our customers will be able to pay their transportation and car park fees, enter stadiums and perform all banking transactions with their mobile phones. There are currently many pilot projects which have not been presented to consumers yet. This work has a more improved content than current pilot applications in terms of its features. We are presenting a service to our customers independent of their phones to make them utilize the service by only changing their SIM cards. Our new work must be considered as not an alternative NFC application but the “last point” in NFC works. We are proud to present this technology to Turkish consumers “for the first time in the world.” I thank everyone who has made efforts.”

“We are continuously working on new technologies to make it possible for card holders to make payment more easily. Mastercard PayPass makes it possible for consumers to make fast and easy payment with their mobile phones without dealing with coins. Banks and consumers in Turkey have always been leading in maintaining innovative technologies. Therefore, we have broken so many new grounds in Turkey. All of our researches show that mobile payments will have an important position among all payments in the near future. We believe that this innovative solution which is launched today and can also be implemented in pre-paid cards will accelerate the development of NFC technology in Turkey and the region” said James Davlouros, Vice President for Innovative Platforms and Mobile Payments in MasterCard, which started the first contactless payment with the Bonus Trink of Garanti Bank for the first time in Europe.

Emphasizing that Turkey has a powerful and growing potential in contactless mobile market, which is very dynamic around the world, Gemalto Trusted Service Management (TSM) Director Remi de Fouchier said, “We, as Gemalto, are very proud to contribute to the successful presentation of mobile contactless payment services which will present a brand new payment type to Turkish consumers in their shopping. We are very pleased to be with Garanti Bank and Avea in effectuating this creative vision.”

Acquiring CyberSource changes Visa’s position in the payment value chain

As Visa Inc’s CEO confirmed in a conference call on the CyberSource deal, Visa has quite rightly been worried about new market entrants in the all-important e-commerce space, and obviously “concerned that it would have an effect on our market share”. Visa’s acquisition of an online payment processor and services provider marks a radical change in the network’s position in the payment value chain, and is a clear stake in the ground when it comes to defending (and potentially regaining) market share in online payment transactions, where the card networks’ share is lower than in the bricks-and-mortar world.

But there is more to it. In addition to offering Visa a direct relationship with merchants, the acquisition will also put it in a better position to expand internationally. In many countries, fear of fraud and a lack of trust in making payments online are more significant issues than they are in the US and UK, and have been holding back take-up of e-commerce. CyberSource’s solution portfolio and the Visa brand are a powerful combination to overcome such concerns.

Their collective commercial proposition is further strengthened by CyberSource’s international network of online merchants. Indeed, the deal also presents Visa with access to value-added services to offer to these merchants which it would otherwise have had to develop itself.

Only time will tell whether Visa can successfully make the transition from its current business model which focuses on brick-and-mortar retailers. But this deal, which is expected to close in Q3 2010, means that the constellation of forces in the online payment market has changed: it positions Visa alongside PayPal as a front runner in the race for future domination of e-commerce and m-commerce transactions, while at the same time putting MasterCard at potential risk of being left behind in the battle for consumer payments in cyberspace.

Visa’s move is part of a wider trend

Visa’s CyberSource acquisition comes hot on the heels of MasterCard’s announcement on April 15 that it was launching MasterCard Labs, a new division designed to develop new payment products and services. Planning to invest tens of millions of dollars in this new division, MasterCard (like Visa) is aiming to ensure that it is in a position to counter the potential threat from new market entrants. American Express made a similar move in November 2009 when it announced that it would spend $300m to acquire Revolution Money, an alternative payment provider founded in 2005.

Both the Visa and American Express acquisitions provide their respective new owners with a whole host of ready-made additional payment service capabilities that can be offered to the wider marketplace, and in Visa’s case, also ready access to 295,000 merchants. MasterCard’s announcement is focused more on future developments, but some of MasterCard Labs’ core capabilities are also founded on an earlier acquisition – Orbiscom. The fact that the former chief executive of Orbiscom is now heading up the new division indicates that there is likely to be a strong focus on the development of services that provide cardholders with new features and functions. The ultimate goal for all of the card networks is to avoid losing customers (and hence transaction traffic) to more fleet-footed newcomers. Only time will tell whether they succeed.