UOB Bank Ltd. has begun offering an application for Apple Inc.’s iPhone and Google Inc.’s Android smartphones called the Lady’s Soulmate as part of the issuer’s effort to revamp its Lady’s credit card. The goal is to add 1 million cardholders by 2014 as part of the initiative, the Singapore-based bank said in a statement.

Software platforms that have enabled developers to create payment applications for use on Apple's iPhone and social-networking websites will have a significant effect on the payments industry over the next decade, David Evans, founder of Market Platform Dynamics, said.

IMGCAP(1)]

IPayment Inc., a Nashville, Tenn.-based payment processor, is reselling Roam Data Inc.’s RoamPay mobile-payment services, Roam Data says. RoamPay can be loaded onto cell phones and used to accept credit and debit card payments.

Banks have devoted much of their mobile banking efforts to making apps for Apple Inc.'s popular iPhone, but a rival system may be more important to consumers who handle their finances by phone.

Bling Nation Ltd. wants to see how well its hands-on approach to deploying mobile payment systems can scale, with a new partnership that gives it access to over 330 potential bank clients.

For the time being the mobile banking environment is fairly safe. That's not because mobile phones are secure, often they're not. Few people use passwords or install anti-virus software. Security experts say they're safe simply because cybercriminals have not yet seriously targeted phones for malware. But as more people adopt mobile banking and it becomes more transactional-not just checking balances and getting alerts-the threats are likely to mount quickly.

The fast growth of social-networking sites containing users’ personal information is drawing concern from some payment data-security experts who say the risk of exposing consumers’ sensitive data is rising. And mobile-payment devices pose similar risks because many developers lack data-security expertise, they say.

Before the mobile contactless payments race has even kicked off, First Data and Visa have grabbed the wheels of the pace car to move the pack faster. Tired of waiting for phone makers and carriers to embrace the concept, both firms have teamed with tech firms to develop products that allow customers to place NFC chips into mobile phones that accept microSD cards.

IMGCAP(1)]

Square Inc. on May 11 announced its much anticipated payment card-acceptance software application for Apple Inc.’s iPhone.

Obopay Inc. is all but abandoning the mobile transfer service it offers to consumers now that it's learned — maybe too late in the game — that banks are where the money is.

2010 will be remembered as the year that implementing mobile banking moved from being a get-on-the-bandwagon trend to table stakes in the American retail financial services market, the year that big banks began to recognize the channel's own legitimacy, and the year that most mid-tier and community banks put mobile banking on their short list of things to get done.

Now's an exciting time to be the bank executives charged with rolling out mobile banking. As industry fortunes rebound, funding is suddenly available at many financial institutions, and consumers' ever-increasing use of their ever-more-sophisticated mobile devices put institutions in the enviable position of rolling out technology just as consumers are ready to embrace it, as opposed to inventing tools and trying to motivate adoption.

Though industry observers generally expect mobile banking to become a mainstream technology with consumers, consumers ages 18 to 25 remain the biggest users of the service, new research suggests.

Visa Inc. may soon test a system for making contactless payments with an Apple Inc. iPhone using a case with a chip in it, according to reports.

Travelex Group, a London-based distributor of foreign-currency reloadable prepaid cards that offer consumers a locked in foreign-exchange rate, has added a text-message alert service to notify cardholders when account funds drop below 100 pounds (US$149 or 117 euros).

The Reserve Bank of India says Yes Bank Ltd. may proceed with plans to provide a mobile-phone based payment and funds-transfer service in association with handset-maker Nokia Corp., a spokesperson from the central bank confirms to PaymentsSource. The service enables bill payments and funds transfers for Yes Bank customers using Nokia handsets.

With merchants and card companies pushing people to abandon paper statements, financial companies are using electronic billing services to keep customers from abandoning their online bill payment sites as well.

Apple Inc. could be in the hunt to acquire Vivotech Inc., a Santa Clara, Calif.-based company specializing in contactless payments, Bloomberg News reported today.