BUSINESS
May 20, 2013 | By Andrea Chang
Mobile payments company Payvia announced Monday that it had acquired Mogreet, a Venice mobile marketing start-up. Payvia, based in L.A., said the deal would create a simplified all-in-one platform that enables companies to target consumers and provide them with a way to buy goods directly from their mobile devices. The company is also hoping to decrease the high rate of shopping cart abandonment - roughly 97% - that occurs on mobile devices. "Our clients have told us they also need a simpler way to link targeted mobile transactions to their marketing campaigns," said Darcy Wedd, chief executive of Payvia.
BUSINESS
July 18, 2012 | By Michelle Maltais
PayPal recently made a significant digital purchase of its own. The mobile-payment service provider, which is owned by eBay, acquired card.io, a San Francisco start-up that enables users to use a smartphone camera to scan in their credit card information, according to a company blog post on Tuesday. The two companies first connected while working on integrating the card.io technology into the PayPal Here app, according to the PayPal blog post . "While working with them, we were simply blown away by the creativity and drive of their employees," wrote Hill Ferguson, PayPal vice president of global product.
BUSINESS
August 15, 2012 | By David Lazarus
It's clear that many of us soon will be paying for stuff at the store with our smartphones. Wal-Mart, Target and a bunch of other retailers are the latest to jump aboard the mobile-payments express train. But is it safe? Doesn't look like it, at least not yet. A group of 14 merchants has unveiled a joint venture for mobile payments to compete with Google Wallet and other providers of such services. The group includes Wal-Mart, Best Buy and 7-Eleven, and they're calling their service Merchant Customer Exchange, or MCX. Billions of dollars in development cash is being thrown at so-called digital wallets, which banks and tech firms believe represent the future of shopping.
BUSINESS
April 28, 2011 | By Jessica Guynn, Los Angeles Times
Visa Inc. is lending its clout — and some cash — to mobile payments company Square, bolstering prospects for the San Francisco start-up. The credit card giant said Wednesday that it made a strategic investment in Square, which will also include one of its executives joining the company's advisory board. Square declined to comment on the terms. A person familiar with the deal said it was in the "single-digit millions. " The investment was the latest in a move by Visa to evaluate "new technologies and invests in payment innovations that can enable more businesses to accept Visa," said John Partridge, president of the Foster City, Calif., company.
BUSINESS
August 16, 2012 | By Andrea Chang and Jessica Guynn, Los Angeles Times
With more shoppers wielding smartphones instead of credit cards and cash to pay for purchases, some of the nation's largest retailers and restaurants are trying to wrest control of the fast-emerging mobile-payment industry away from technology firms. More than a dozen merchants, includingWal-Mart Stores Inc.,Target Corp.,Best Buy Co.andSears Holdings Corp., said Wednesday that they were teaming up to develop their own walletless platform, including an app, that will enable tech-savvy customers to quickly pay for goods with their smartphones.
BUSINESS
April 2, 2013 | Marc Lifsher and Jessica Guynn
California is applying money-transfer laws to high-tech start-ups and others in the business of moving funds, subjecting them to the same strict regulations and heavy scrutiny as financial service companies. And that has some Silicon Valley entrepreneurs crying foul. The regulations, they say, are hobbling their ability to develop new Internet technologies that, like PayPal Inc. and Square Inc., make fast, secure payments with smartphones and tablets. FaceCash, a Palo Alto company that developed a mobile payment system using facial-recognition software, has sued the state in federal court on claims that licensing requirements discriminate against the company and hinder interstate commerce.