A regional rural bank in India on Sept. 29 launched a trial to test a new mobile-based version of India’s Kisan credit card, which farmers use to buy equipment and products such as fertilizer and seeds at a lower interest rate.

New regulations that are sweeping across the banking industry, particularly the Durbin amendment to the Dodd/Frank Act, have financial institutions and other card issuers scrambling to find alternative ways to boost fee income as traditional revenue streams tighten over time.

Passengers traveling by bus or train in Frankfurt, Germany, will have more options to pay for tickets using their mobile phones if they are carrying a Blackberry device when using the Rhein-Main Verkehrsverbund transportation system.

The launch of Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle Fire in late September stoked the flames of the tablet war raging among providers such as Hewlett-Packard Co., Apple Inc., Research in Motion Inc. and Amazon Inc.

Controversy brewed in the Android Marketplace last week when Bank of America Corp. began rolling out a person-to-person payment feature in its mobile-banking application.

Apple Inc. is taking a pass on mobile payments for now as its new iPhone lacks a Near Field Communication chip.

OfficeMax Inc. customers may tap and pay using the Google Wallet mobile phone payment application at new checkout terminals the retailer has placed in more than 100 of its stores, the office-supply company announced Oct. 3.

Apriva LLC has released the Apriva Secure Communication Suite, which its ISS division designed to help secure mobile communications, the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based company announced Oct. 3.

Most banks design mobile sites as shrunken versions of online banking. Citigroup Inc.'s new website instead takes the lessons of mobile and blows them up for a bigger screen.

Banks are pushing mobile devices for payments, but an untapped–and more immediate–opportunity may involve using mobile phones to improve security on mainstream payment types, according to one security vendor.

Banks and technology companies betting on mobile payments have to overcome a very basic hurdle: most Americans still do not have smartphones.

Borrowing money from a friend for a taxi ride, splitting the restaurant bill among a group of diners or sending funds to a student at college could become an easier and faster task through a new mobile-payment option Visa Europe is launching this week.

Mitek Systems Inc. has launched a single platform for remote deposit check capture and has formed a partnership that will help banks using its product fight duplicate-check fraud, the San Diego-based company announced Sept. 27.

Isis announced on Sept. 27 that several companies will launch mobile devices that implement its NFC and technology standards.

Banks tend to look at competitors in mobile payments with a wary eye, but they would be better off working with one segment of this group–telecommunication network providers, suggests Ernst & Young’s new report “Mobile Money 2011 (see report).

Kenya is proving to be a hub of mobile-finance innovation in the developing world, even as mobile-payment systems in the U.S. struggle to build an audience.

Google Wallet and its rivals are coming soon to bank customers’ mobile phones, but it turns out the vast majority of them could not care less, new research suggests.

NEW YORK — MasterCard Inc. is preparing for the launch of Google Inc.’s mobile wallet within the next few weeks, but executives do not expect to see consumers regularly paying with their phones anytime soon.

In a move designed to streamline cross-border funds-transfers in the South Pacific, mobile funds-transfer service Vodafone MPAiSA Fiji on Sept. 9 announced new capabilities enabling consumers from Australia and New Zealand to send funds to anyone in Fiji with a Vodafone mobile phone.

Building on its growing momentum in contactless payments, Bank of Montreal is rolling out the Mobile PayPass Tag, a Near Field Communication-enabled sticker that consumers can attach to their mobile phones to make contactless payments in Canada, the bank announced Sept. 13.