Alternative payments provider Dwolla Corp. is adding to its software a feature that locates fellow Dwolla users who are nearby.

UniRush LLC is following the lead of other prepaid card providers and has released a free smartphone application cardholders may use to check their balances and review transaction and funds-transfer histories.

Steve Jobs' resignation raises further uncertainty over Apple Inc.'s payment plan intentions, but Apple patents themselves provide some clues as to where the company may be going.

Despite increasing activity involving mobile payments, consumers still trust credit card companies more than companies such as Google Inc., eBay Inc. or Facebook Inc.

Boku Inc. has inked an agreement with two French wireless phone carriers to offer its carrier-billing service, a deal which will extend Boku’s reach to 32 million customers in France.

A new mobile credit card reader to be offered in the United States by a European startup will accept magnetic stripe cards for payment, but the company is not concerned the U.S. move to EMV cards will affect merchant interest in the device.

Financial institutions that serve military personnel, including USAA and Navy Federal Credit Union, are pressured to provide a wide range of remote access beyond that of traditional branch-heavy banks because the Web and mobile phone are often the only access points that consumers who are stationed overseas have to their financial institution.

In a significant boost to mobile payments in China, the country’s sole card processor China UnionPay Co. Ltd. has formed a partnership with handset maker HTC Corp. to launch a phone with a built-in mobile-payment facility.

A new point-of-sale terminal from Vivotech Inc. capable of accepting Near Field Communication mobile payments and chip-and-PIN transactions could help position U.S. merchants to embrace EMV smart card technology and perhaps save them money on security-standards compliance costs, the vendor believes.

Not only are more banks offering mobile banking, more are also releasing multiple applications to try to appeal to as many types of banking customers as possible.

Rising interest in the emergence of mobile-payment technologies for smartphones appears to be spurring a gold-rush mentality among would-be developers looking to produce the next hit mobile-payment application.

Citigroup Inc. has launched a mobile-rewards application with Best Buy Co. Inc. that enables its cardholders to redeem ThankYou rewards, Citi announced Aug. 18.

It made headlines in Europe, but this week’s announcement that three major telecommunication companies in Germany have joined forces to bypass supporting banks in handling Mpass mobile-payment transactions is a concept not likely to quickly take hold in other countries, one industry observer says.

Eager to exploit new growth opportunities in a sluggish economy, certain payments-industry technology suppliers already are positioning themselves to capitalize on opportunities Visa Inc.’s U.S. EMV chip card initiative may trigger as participants upgrade systems and equipment, observers say.

Kennesaw State University has entered into a partnership with mobile money start-up TreasureCom Financial Holdings Inc. to develop and market banking applications for mobile phones. The school, which is located north of Atlanta, also partnered has with Microsoft Corp. to establish the lab where the mobile applications are developed.

Isis, the telecommunication consortium intent on offering a mobile-payment scheme, is building out a wider range of mobile-wallet capabilities to keep up with its aggressive rival, Google Inc.

Google Inc.’s Aug. 15 announcement of an agreement to acquire Motorola Mobility Holdings strengthens Google’s position in mobile payments, one observer says.

When Pago Mobile Inc. launched its mobile wallet with 53 merchants in Mountain View, Calif., last week, initial industry reaction focused on the smaller payments-application company venturing into turf more commonly associated with Google Inc. in northern California.

With Google Inc.’s Aug. 15 announcement of an agreement to acquire Motorola Mobility Holdings, the search giant potentially has turbocharged its mobile-payment plans.

The latest forecast of mobile payment growth, from U.K. research company Visiongain, calls for $150 billion in mobile-phone-generated payments to take place globally by the end of this year. This is significantly larger than the estimate Gartner came out with last month, which predicted that worldwide mobile payment volume would total $86.1 billion in 2011.