U.S. Bank And Visa Pilot Micro Tag
What better time to test alternative payment devices than during the holiday season? Visa is piloting its smallest alternative electronic payment device available, the Visa Micro Tag, with U.S. Bancorp. The payWave-enabled contactless device was given to more than 4,000 U.S. Bank employees in November in an effort to get feedback on its usability. The tag, which Visa first launched in 2007, is tied to a prepaid Visa gift account and designed for smaller purchases such as coffee or for use at a concession stand or kiosk-not a bad idea given the holiday spending forecasts.
Citi And Firethorn Are Teaming Up
Citi credit card customers will now be able to check card-account information, in real-time, on their mobile phones. The product, Citi Mobile for Cards, is available to both AT&T Mobile Banking subscribers and Verizon Wireless customers. Firethorn Holdings will enable cardholders to securely check balances, amount available for purchase, recent transaction history and rewards programs information. "Citi's goal is to be everywhere our customers need us to be and interact with them however they choose," says Raja Rajamannar, Citi Global Cards CMO, in a statement.
M-Banking Adoptiion Gains In Web Users
Institutions that offer ClairMail's two-way mobile banking and payment services are seeing as many as 25 percent of online banking customers sign up for the mobile banking service, according to recent findings from ClairMail. The robust adoption rate is the highest in the industry so far, ClairMail officials contend. And these users aren't just signing up and forgetting about it. They're averaging 12 transactions per month, meaning that ClairMail is processing millions of transactions each month.
