Payments

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.

Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson claims in a lawsuit that Discover Bank telemarketers selling identity-theft and credit-score monitoring services fail to tell consumers when they are agreeing to purchase those products, according to several media reports.

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.

Consumer spending online during the five-day period that started with Black Friday (Nov. 26) grew by double digits compared with the same period in 2009, merchant processor Chase Paymentech Solutions LLC announced.

ST. PAUL, Minn. – The 3M Company announced yesterday its Non-Metallic Foil technology has been accepted for use by MasterCard for credit, debit and gift cards, giving credit unions and banks the option of cards with a metallic-like finish.

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. – DataCard Corp. said its recently acquired Dynamic Card Solutions unit has been granted a U.S. patent on instant issuance printing technology for unembossed “flat” financial cards.

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.

RIVERWOODS, Ill. – Discover Financial has begun issuing its new Zip contactless credit cards and stickers, targeted at early adopters of its mobile technology.

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.

Credit card delinquency rates continued to fall in the third quarter as consumers continued to pay down debt and higher-risk borrowers stopped using credit cards at all, according to a report from TransUnion.

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.