Two-year-old mobile payment startup Dwolla has gone from zero to $1 million per day in transactions.

Buoyed by the fast uptake of smartphones and tablets in the country, First National Bank Ltd. says it has become the first financial institution in South Africa to offer a mobile-banking application to its customers.

Though contactless payments have long been advertised for their ease of use, recent trials have departed from that premise. Some banks are putting the focus back on simplicity — and making payments as easy as a flick of the wrist.

As the hype for widespread Near Field Communication-enabled mobile payments continues to heat up, eBay Inc.’s CEO doused some cold water on the concept, suggesting instead that large merchants will resist the unproven technology.

Mobile payments will surpass 141.1 million users worldwide this year, a 38.2% increase from 102.1 million users in 2010, according to Gartner estimates released July 21. Worldwide mobile payment sales volume is forecast to total $86.1 billion, up 75.9% from 2010 volume of $48.9 billion.

Giftango Corp. wants to give merchants a head start on the mobile-wallet age by placing two-dimensional barcodes on the back of their proprietary, closed-loop gift cards to enable consumers to convert the plastic to a digital format via a smartphone camera, among other capabilities.

The biggest trend in merchant acquiring this year is a concentration on developing and selling mobile card acceptance to micromerchants, a new report suggests.

Isis, the wireless carrier-led mobile-payments venture, just crossed off a relatively small but integral item on its to-do list in signing Visa Inc., American Express Co. and MasterCard Worldwide to its system.

Isis, the mobile carrier-led mobile payments venture that initially planned to compete against incumbent payment networks, now has formed relationships with them, it announced July 19.

U.S. Bancorp has increased its mobile-banking options for prepaid card customers.

Continuing efforts to get its Serve digital wallet into consumers’ hands, American Express Co. has signed a deal with Sprint Nextel to put the payments application on the Sprint Zone website, where Sprint customers go to manage their mobile-phone accounts, Amex announced July 18.

Germany's Federal Office for Information Security warned last week about a vulnerability in the way Apple's iOS devices such as the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch deal with PDF files.

Mobile-based payment services could account for US$350 billion in payments and banking transactions in India by 2015, producing fee income that could exceed US$4.5 billion, a new report suggests.

As his company continues its mission to replace wallets and traditional payment terminals, MobilePayUSA CEO Randy Smith believes his company’s Virtual Terminal represents “more than a new way to pay; you are getting payments and marketing.”

Demand is far outstripping supply these days in mobile remote deposit capture, new research suggests.

The march of mobile banking has moved more slowly in the U.K. than in other countries, but NatWest and RBS have moved more quickly than others. They were among the first to offer native smartphone apps, and this week became the first two U.K. banks to offer native iPad tablet apps.

To sign up for a Dwolla account and integrate it with a credit-union account was a fairly tedious process that could take two to three days–until FiSync came along to streamline the task to less than a minute.

Banks and credit card companies are likeliest to succeed in mobile payments, contend business executives surveyed recently.

With a 98% retention rate, USAA Federal Savings Bank seems to have little room to improve customer service for its payments and other operations. But it has spent the past two years and millions of dollars overhauling systems to do just that.

CoVantage Credit Union is working with the software vendor Tyfone Inc. to make its customers’ wallets more mobile.