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Mobile-payments company Obopay Inc. has signed an agreement with Fidelity Information Services Inc. to enable the Jacksonville, Fla.-based transaction processor to market Obopay's person-to-person payments service to its 13,000 financial-institution clients, the companies announced today. The Fidelity deal is the first in which a payments processor is offering Obopay's service, Michael Diamond, Obopay senior vice president of business development, tells CardLine. Under the agreement, Fidelity's client financial institutions can offer Obopay's mobile P2P service to their customers, who would sign up using their participating bank's Web site. Consumers who register could then choose how the service should be added to their phones, either by SMS text message, Web browser or downloadable software, says Diamond. The P2P service enables consumers to use their mobile phones to transfer funds from a linked checking or payment card account to other consumers' Obopay mobile-phone accounts. Users also could choose to have the Obopay funds transferred to a prepaid card, which the financial institution would send to them by mail, Diamond says. They also may choose to receive a virtual prepaid card number, which they could use for online purchases, he says. Obopay has been gaining traction of late. In September, the Redwood City, Calif.-based company announced that Bancorp Inc. of Wilmington, Del., would issue prepaid debit cards linked to its mobile-payment accounts (CardLine, 9/11). Also, MasterCard Worldwide in June announced it would test Obopay's P2P mobile-payment service later this year (CardLine, 6/19) .
