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.

When newly acquired card customers from HSBC’s U.S. card program and ING’s online bank are folded into Capital One Financial Corp.’s existing base, they will have a rapidly expanding array of digital transaction and payments channels from which to choose.

The battle for supremacy in mobile person-to-person payments is raging. To date, its primary ordnance has been limited to the press release and the corporate event, most of them volleyed by big-name operators of existing payment networks, such as PayPal Inc., Visa Inc. and MasterCard Worldwide and Google Inc.

Instead of dipping its toe into the mobile-payments pool, Heartland Payment Systems Inc. intends to make a splash with a retail application that can enable a merchant’s employees to complete sales transactions anywhere in or out of the store.

Mobile-banking applications fared better than retail, productivity and social-networking apps, but banks still have work to do to protect customer data on mobile devices, a security audit released Aug. 8 suggests.

WESTbahn Management GmbH has selected VeriFone Systems Inc.’s PAYware Mobile Enterprise and managed-services products for use with its mobile-ticketing validation and payment operations when the company’s rail service begins in December, the payment terminal-maker announced Aug. 8.

Square Inc.’s mobile card reader is under fire again for its security.

Since 13-fold growth in business activity inside of a year is almost never wrong, Bank of New Zealand developed an Android app after Android visits to its mobile web browser spiked explosively in recent months.

CorFire is working to show it is ready to make a name for itself in mobile payments.

Verity Credit Union, the latest customer of mFoundry's mBanking solution, has come out with the news that 6% of its customers began using mobile banking within three months of the credit union offering the service.

For a large international operation such as RBS' wholesale banking unit, drawing a mobile roadmap means scaling the knowledge curve posed by fast-developing new devices and technology to find the best match between innovation and client demand.