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Nokia Money wants some of what PayPal's having

by Chris Ziegler posted Aug 26th 2009 @ 5:46PM

A healthy percentage of Nokia's revenue comes from emerging markets, and the company goes to great lengths to fill out the very bottom rungs of its lineup with devices to satisfy seemingly every need of every demographic -- built-in flashlights, segmented contact lists for phones shared among family members, the list goes on -- and now the company's tackling another need by offering rudimentary banking and money transfer services by way of the handset. Noting that of the four billion cellphones in the world there are only 1.6 billion bank accounts, Nokia's so-called Nokia Money service will bring electronic money management to some areas of the world for the first time -- a customer need only know the phone number of the intended recipient to send a payment. Powered by mobile money transfer specialist Obopay, Nokia Money's going to be shown at Nokia World next week on its way to a rollout in select markets early next year.

Japan installs cellphone jammers near ATMs to prevent fraud

by Darren Murph posted Dec 10th 2008 @ 7:53PM

If you're tired of being scammed at ATMs by kind, gentle-hearted con artists (and then forgetting it ever happened), you'll be stoked to know that Japan is looking out for you. Chiba Bank has installed phone signal jammers at four unnamed ATMs at bank branches in the Tokyo region, and while it has gone down as the first institution to go to such lengths, we highly doubt it'll be the last. It's not entirely clear what exactly the criminals were able to convince people to do via mobile, but it's probably something like "psst... get me out some cheddar and meet around back." Not that we have any experience in the field or anything...

[Via textually]

Analyst says Palm burning through cash like it's going out of style

by Chris Ziegler posted Nov 5th 2008 @ 7:18PM

Stock downgrades are nothing new for the boys and girls at Palm, but analyst Tavis McCourt of Morgan Keegan (which certainly sounds like an important and all-knowing firm) has painted a particularly bleak picture of the company's books today -- so grim, in fact, that it set off a 20 percent drop in the company's market cap. Apparently the big concern is Palm's cash burn rate, which has left a cash reserve of just under a quarter billion dollars through a series of delays and setbacks that have been partially offset by moderate successes like the Centro. McCourt figures that'll be down to a mere $75 million by the time Palm OS 2 launches, and that's assuming they don't run into any more slips in the schedule. He notes that Bono can always just flip 'em a few more mil out of his Joshua Tree earnings, but it'll end up diluting existing shareholders' stakes, hence the massive drop in value today. No pressure, Palm.

Visa gunning for your phone, announces Nokia and Android plans

by Chris Ziegler posted Sep 26th 2008 @ 5:00AM

Neither mobile banking apps nor mobile payment technologies are anything new, but the depth of Visa's newfound commitment to anything and everything mobile here is pretty unique. The company has announced a slew of initiatives to make it as frighteningly easy as possible for cardholders to do cool things with their accounts right from their phones starting with the launch of the Nokia 6212 Classic next month, which will serve up NFC-based contactless payments, cardholder-to-cardholder transfers, and realtime account alerts (subject to issuing bank availability). Meanwhile, they've wasted no time jumping on the Android bandwagon, revealing that they've hooked up with Chase to offer an Android app that delivers notifications, merchant "offers," and a location-based search of nearby retailers that accept Visa cards (which is pretty much all of them in our experience). If the Chase trial pans out, Visa plans to shop the Android app around to other issuing banks. Finally, there's also a new web-based mobile money transfer pilot going down that's scheduled to kick off around the end of the year involving several banks and "as many as" 6,000 cardholders; what are the odds that those 6,000 are going to be transferring much money among each other, though?

[Via CNET]

Read - Nokia partnership
Read - Android plans
Read - Mobile money transfer

Microsoft's quarterly report confirms $500 million spent on Danger

by Darren Murph posted Aug 2nd 2008 @ 8:51PM

We had heard that Microsoft threw down a cool half billion to acquire Danger earlier this year, but quite honestly, we found it a bit tough to believe. After all, analysts are saying that even Motorola is barely worth that much. Regardless of all that, the outfit's latest quarterly report filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission affirms that it did indeed spend $500 million on Danger. That's a lot of jack, son.

Sony, NXP get official with Moversa joint venture

by Darren Murph posted Nov 14th 2007 @ 3:49PM

Chances are, you had forgotten all about Sony and NXP's little initiative to cooperate on a NFC (near-field communications) standard, but the two seem to have finally worked out all the kinks and are ready to move forward. The joint venture, dubbed Moversa, will seek to "drive global adoption of contactless smart card applications in mobile phones," and it's already planning to develop, produce and market a Universal Secure Access Module (U-SAM) that "incorporates both MIFARE and FeliCa operating systems and applications." Essentially, the duo is hoping to accelerate the adoption of integrated contactless support, which would enable users to make payments (among other things) easily via their handset. If you're curious about availability, we're hearing that samples should be shipped out in mid-2008, but commercial deployments aren't scheduled to happen until the end of next year.

[Via Yahoo / Reuters]

"Wave-and-pay" system headed to Canada

by Darren Murph posted Nov 7th 2007 @ 9:03PM

Oh, Canada! If all goes to plan, you Canucks up north will soon be able to take advantage of technology that is already in use in many corners of the globe. Reportedly, the Royal Bank of Canada and Visa Canada will be teaming up to launch a pilot program that enables users to purchase goods by just waving their cellphone in front of a reader. The handsets will sport an embedded microchip to pass along payment information, and similar to PayPass setups, it'll require no pin / password / signature for transactions under $25. Anne Koski, head of payment innovations at Royal Bank's cards division, noted that it was still too early to say which mobiles would eventually feature the built-in technology, but hopefully we'll be finding out sooner rather than (even) later.

[Image courtesy of USATech]

Western Union hopes to enable mobile money transfers, scammers rejoice

by Darren Murph posted Oct 19th 2007 @ 5:56AM

Just when you thought those Nigerian scammers were simply running out of avenues to coerce you into cashing some counterfeit check for $4.98 billion, along comes this. Western Union is apparently buddying up with 35 or so cellphone operators to "develop a system that would allow consumers to transfer money from country to country via their mobile phones." Reportedly, the outfit has successfully tested the service in a number of US cities, and if everything goes as planned, it could launch in Q2 of 2008. Notably, it still sounds like an actual human will be a part of the process, as the system will purportedly "connect the user to a company operator to complete the transaction." Quite frankly, we appreciate the convenience of such a service, but don't you go falling for any sappy stories of long-lost cousins needing your help to funnel in millions as you ride to work, alright?

SK Telecom handing over $270 million (more) to Helio

by Darren Murph posted Sep 21st 2007 @ 3:31PM

As if receiving $200 million from SK Telecom and EarthLink back in July wasn't enough, Helio is now set to accept (up to) a $270 million check from SK Telecom. According to EarthLink, SK Telecom will "invest up to $270 million in Helio," and as expected, EarthLink was "very pleased" with the decision -- you know, considering that it won't be forced to cough up any more dough at the moment while still maintaining "substantial ownership interest in Helio's future." Most interesting, however, is the tidbit that mentions the parents' plans, as EarthLink and SK Telecom are reportedly "in discussions to amend their existing agreements to reflect the additional investment by SK Telecom and their future governance of Helio." Gotta pay to play, we suppose.

Amp'd regains connectivity, drops lawsuit against Verizon

by Darren Murph posted Jun 26th 2007 @ 8:00AM

Apparently, it would just be far too easy for Amp'd to bow out of the fledgling MVNO realm after filing for bankruptcy, as the company has recently reached an agreement with Verizon Wireless that enables it to use The Network in exchange for Amp'd dropping its lawsuit. The suit was reportedly filed after Verizon moved to kick the Los Angeles-based Amp'd off its network, but we can't exactly blame Verizon for being quite perturbed after not receiving $33 million in payments. Of course, we're sure this spat is far from finished, but the case will press on next week while Amp'd customers can once again intrepidly chat away on Verizon's equipment -- for the time being, at least.

[Via mocoNews]