Mobile payment generally refer to payment services operated under financial regulation and performed from or via a mobile device. Instead of paying with cash, cheque, or credit cards, a consumer can use a mobile to pay for a wide range of services and digital or hard goods. Although the concept of using non-coin-based currency systems has a long history, it is only in the 21st century that the technology to support such systems has become widely available.
Network for Electronic Transfers or more commonly known as NETS; is a Singaporean electronic payment service provider founded in 1985 by a consortium of local banks to establish the debit network and drive the adoption of electronic payments in Singapore. It is owned by DBS Bank, OCBC Bank and United Overseas Bank (UOB).
Google Pay Send, previously known as Google Wallet, was a peer-to-peer payments service developed by Google before its merger into Google Pay. It allowed people to send and receive money from a mobile device or desktop computer at no cost to either sender or receiver.
Alipay is a third-party mobile and online payment platform, established in Hangzhou, China in February 2004 by Alibaba Group and its founder Jack Ma. In 2015, Alipay moved its headquarters to Pudong, Shanghai, although its parent company Ant Financial remains Hangzhou-based.
JVL Ventures, LLC d/b/a Softcard, was a joint venture between AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon which produced a mobile payments platform known as Softcard, which used near-field communication (NFC) technology to allow users to pay for items at stores and restaurants with credit and debit card credentials stored on their smartphones. The partnership was first announced on November 16, 2010; following a trial period in 2012, the service officially launched nationwide on November 14, 2013. The official Softcard app was available for NFC-compatible smartphones using the Android operating system and later on Windows Phone 8.1.
FreedomPay was founded in 2000 and is currently located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In early 2000, FreedomPay launched mobile payment "proof of concepts" with enterprises such as McDonald's, Bank of America and Visa. Later in 2004, FreedomPay delivered a closed loop payment system for stored value and voucher systems to the markets in the food service industry.
Kuapay, is a defunct Santa Monica, California-based payment service provider that combined a digital wallet and mobile payments. The company developed one of the first foreign third-party payment apps to go live in China, and was reportedly the official mobile payments provider in Chile.
FreeCharge is a digital marketplace for financial services based in Gurugram, Haryana, India. FreeCharge services are available across a range of financial instruments including savings, payments, insurance, investment and lending. The company’s focus is to create an ecosystem of innovative products and features that enables cashless transactions. FreeCharge consumers can pay utility bills, pay Landline bills or recharge Mobile, Broadband, DTH and Metro cards. In addition, FreeCharge powered by Axis Bank enables the users to invest in mutual funds and get easy credit through FreeCharge EMI. FreeCharge UPI and payment gateway allows consumers to instantly send or receive money, shop at leading offline and online merchants across categories movies, entertainment, food, shopping, travel to get cashback & discounts. On 8 April 2015, Snapdeal acquired Freecharge in what is being referred to as the second biggest take over in the Indian e-commerce sector so far, after the buy out of Ibibo by rival MakeMyTrip, and the biggest venture capital exit in India to date. The deal was for approximately US$400 million as cash and stock. On 27 July 2017, Axis Bank acquired FreeCharge for $60 million.
Tappr is a financial technology company based in Brisbane, Australia that designs and develops payment, point of sale and business solutions suited to SME's. Brett Hales founded Tappr in 2012 and develops a smart card terminal, mPOS apps and other business tools suited to SME's. In 2014, Tappr developed its first working prototype of the Tappr Card Reader. Since then a number of prototypes have been conceptualised while the company built its apps and API. In June 2016, Tappr produced a new prototype of the Tappr Card Reader which had new components including a touch LCD and android os. The Tappr App which runs the Tappr Card Reader and connects via Bluetooth was launched in September 2015 and is currently in beta testing for selected Australian users.
iZettle AB is a Swedish financial technology company founded by Jacob de Geer and Magnus Nilsson in April 2010. The company launched its first app and service in 2011. The company offers a range of financial products including payments, point of sales, funding and partners applications.
Powa Technologies was a UK-based technology company, known for its commerce, mobile commerce and e-commerce services. The company’s flagship product was the mobile application PowaTag. In February 2016, investment company Wellington Management appointed professional services firm Deloitte as administrators of Powa Technologies.
MobiKwik is an Indian company founded in 2009 that provides a mobile phone based payment system and digital wallet. Customers add money to an online wallet that can be used for payments. In 2013 the Reserve Bank of India authorized the company's use of the MobiKwik wallet, and in May 2016 the company began providing small loans to consumers as part of its service. The company launched its MobiKwik Lite mobile app in November 2016, designed for users of older 2G mobile networks and for those in areas with poor internet connectivity. In November 2016, the company reported having 1.5 million merchants using its service and a user base of 55 million customers.
Alessandro (Alex) Gadotti, entrepreneur, spent some years as APAC CEO of Powa Technologies. Powa, who had acquired ZNAP for US$75 million in May 2014 went into liquidation in February 2016.
Cellum Group is an international provider of mobile transaction solutions, including mobile payments and mobile commerce. The company is headquartered in Hungary, Europe, with several subsidiaries and affiliates around the world, including Austria, Bulgaria, Singapore and the United States.
Oxigen Services India Pvt. Ltd., an ISO 9001:2008 certified FinTech company, is one of the major payment solutions providers in India. It is involved in micropayment of services and remittances in real time. The company was started in 2004 by an alumnus of IIT Roorkee with the help of Blue Label Telecom, and the company was listed on the South African Stock Exchange.
Tez was a mobile payments service by Google, targeted at users in India. It was rebranded to Google Pay on August 28, 2018. It operates atop the Unified Payments Interface, developed by the National Payments Corporation of India. It can be used where UPI payments are accepted. Tez works on the vast majority of India’s smartphones with the Android app supporting English, Hindi, Telugu, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi, and Tamil with more languages coming soon. There are plans to release the app in other emerging countries including Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand. "Tez" is the Hindi word for "Fast". Within 37 days after being launched, Tez got about 8.5 million installations. Over 30 million transactions were made on the app as of October 27, 2017.
BharatQR, developed by NPCI, Mastercard, and Visa, is an integrated payment system in India. The system, which was launched in September 2016, facilitates users to transfer their money from one source to another. The money transferred through BharatQR is received directly in the user's linked bank account. It provides a common interface between RuPay, Mastercard, Visa, American Express as opposed to other such systems used by startups and is interoperable with all the banks. Currently, BharatQR is supported on Android and iOS devices.
QR code payment is a contactless payment method where payment is performed by scanning a QR code from a mobile app. This is an alternative to doing electronic funds transfer at point of sale using a payment terminal. This avoids a lot of the infrastructure traditionally associated with electronic payments such as payment cards, payment networks, payment terminal and merchant accounts.
PayMe is a mobile payment service from HSBC, currently available only for Hong Kong users with local phone numbers and banks. Users can pay businesses, transfer money to one another using a mobile app, linked to their credit card or bank account.
Faster Payment System is a real-time gross settlement payment system in Hong Kong that connects traditional banks and electronic payment and digital wallet operators. Users are able to perform instant money transfer or make payment to merchants by using the recipient's phone number, e-mail or QR code that contains the user's numeric identifier. Using the "traditional way" of full name and account number to make interbank transfer is also allowed.
