Cardlytics Inc. and ClairMail Inc. have announced a partnership to enable financial institutions to deliver coupons and other merchant offers to customers’ mobile phones, Atlanta-based Cardlytics reported on Dec. 7.

China’s largest telecommunication operator China Telecom Ltd. is partnering with the Bank of China Ltd. and China UnionPay to offer a mobile-payment service in the city of Ningbo in China’s Zhenjiang province.

The Qatar Central Bank, the apex banking body in the Middle Eastern country, has given its nod to mobile funds-transfer and payment services in Qatar.

PARIS–Amid the steady drumbeat of recent mobile-payments announcements, interoperability has emerged as the watchword for developers as they bring their new innovations to market.

A newly announced mobile phone running Google Inc.’s Android software contains the hardware groundwork for mobile payments.

Co-Op Financial Services announced it has teamed with mFoundry to offer mobile deposits, allowing members to “snap and deposit” checks from anywhere using their mobile phones.

Vivotech Inc. and Monitise PLC have formed a partnership to bring mobile-payment services to banks within the United States, London-based Monitise announced Dec. 7.

PARIS–Mobile payments are set to expand dramatically within the next two years, payments industry executives concurred during a roundtable discussion here Dec. 7 at the Cartes & IDentification conference. Although various obstacles to widespread deployment remain, the panelists agreed the industry has achieved significant progress within the past 12 months.

Motorists in Dubai reportedly are upset about the new mParking service launched by the Road Transport Authority of Dubai because of its limited functionality. The service enables motorists to pay for their parking lot tickets by sending a text message from their mobile phones.

As the effects of recent financial legislation may cause some card issuers to scale back on the rewards and loyalty programs they offer to encourage card use and, inherently, shopping, the doors may be opening for third-party loyalty-program providers to align with merchants.

Singapore’s telecommunication regulator, the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, has issued a “call for collaboration” seeking participation in the deployment of an interoperable Near Field Communication payments infrastructure in the country.

Starbucks Corp. has begun a national rollout of the mobile-payment system it began testing more than a year ago, the company announced Dec. 1.

Roam Data is making available a Roampay Swipe card reader that plugs into the audio jack of BlackBerry smartphones, the Boston-based firm announced Nov. 30.

While most bank mobile apps are focused initially on iPhones, then move to Blackberry and Android in subsequent rollouts, it would appear that Android and iPhone are the way to go as BlackBerry falls behind its two rivals in sales.

The National Payment Corp. of India on Nov. 23 rolled out its instant interbank mobile fund-transfer service, which enables customers of seven banks in the country to exchange funds to one another.

Omnego Inc. has launched a mobile wallet application that converts physical loyalty cards including stores’ coupons, rewards and other merchant updates into digital formats usable on mobile devices such as smart phones, the Toronto-based mobile technology company recently announced.

Bank of America Corp. is building on its mobile payments strategy with plans to issue contactless stickers to its credit and debit card customers next year.

The man who developed the concept for what is now the most popular social-networking website has created a mobile-payments application that relies on facial recognition to confirm a user’s identity at the point of sale.

Bank of America Corp. is planning to issue contactless payment stickers to at least some of its card customers, a source familiar with the plans said.

With sponsorship from Citigroup Inc., Billing Revolution Inc. is trying to help convert people who window-shop on their mobile phones into paying customers.