Mobile payments

Fortumo Ltd., which provides mobile payments through carrier phone bills, has entered agreements with China Unicom and China Telecom.

Groupon has modified its Breadcrumb POS mobile payments app to allow it to handle payments even when the wireless signal cuts out. It was no easy feat.

Visa CEO Charlie Scharf responded to the retailer-backed Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX)'s recent moves in mobile payments by pointing to the growth of Visa's V.me digital wallet, its penetration among merchants, and the fact that MCX's wallet still hasn't launched.

Mobile wallet provider Lemon Inc. has begun providing the payment function that had been missing from its mobile wallet.

Jack Dorsey, the celebrity CEO of mobile payments company Square — who also has aspirations to one day be mayor of New York — was the inspiration for an upcoming graphic novel published by actress Alyssa Milano.

U.K.-based mobile point of sale company iZettle now charges a range of 1.5% to 2.75% based on the merchant client's monthly volume.

London-based Kalixa Payments Group is offering consumers in Europe a mobile wallet based on DeviceFidelity's Near Field Communication technology.

John Lunn, global director of the PayPal Developer Network, details the recommitment the company's made to building and maintaining third-party developer tools since David Marcus become president of PayPal in March 2012.

FreedomPay has hired Rodney Bowen-Wright, a former Microsoft venture capital specialist, to be its chief business development officer.

QR codes, the two-dimensional bar codes used in many mobile wallets, are easy to deploy but can vary in their level of security.

Discover Chairman and CEO David Nelms emphasizes that the financial benefits of partnerships with companies like PayPal and Ariba will not come right away.

American Express Co. will be discontinuing its Deals and Offers program on the Serve digital wallet on August 12.

Cardlytics, which provides card-linked marketing technology, has hired Jim Morgan to be its chief financial officer, a new position.

Shopkick now allows consumers to make purchases directly from its mobile app, which rewards consumers for visiting its merchant clients in-person.

Check, a mobile financial management and bill payment provider, is working with the Desert Water Agency in Palm Springs, Calif., to allow residents to pay their utility bills from its smartphone app.

The Affordable Care Act's individual mandate will hasten individual responsibility for health care procurement and payments, making mobile apps increasingly important.

Mumbai power distributor Reliance Infrastructure Ltd. says it has established the first mobile and Web-based digital option for residents to pay their utility bills.

A mobile security expert in Germany says he found a flaw in the encryption technology of some mobile phone SIM cards holding personal and payment details.

TouchSuite says the cloud is the perfect place for salon owners to operate their point of sale systems.

Eat24.com has developed a new point of sale terminal and restaurant management system it intends to offer for free to help clients handle online food orders.