Amazon joins mobile payment players

Amazon.com is making a significant move into mobile today that puts it in direct competition with Apple's iTunes and eBay's PayPal, states Paidcontent.

The announcement also provides a hint as to where the Seattle-based company is headed next: mobile content and applications. Up until now, Amazon has only experimented in mobile, but Handmark, a mobile content and storefront company, said it is integrating Amazon into its mobile storefronts.

This will allow users to pay for content and applications using their credit card on file with Amazon.

Global electronic payments provider First Data has signed an agreement with PayPal to allow debit cardholders in First Data's Star Network to link their Star debit card to a PayPal account online, states Business Wire.

Registered users can use their debit card to fund their PayPal account to make online purchases without having to expose their debit card number to online merchants for each purchase.

According to the 2008 Study of Consumer Payment Preferences, credit cards have the highest penetration of all payment methods on the Internet. However, both debit cards and Internet payment services such as PayPal, have the second highest penetration levels among online shoppers.

Nets has unveiled a FlashPay card that allows payments for transport, retail services in Singapore, says Channel News Asia.

Nets currently has 37 000 merchant partners with some 2 500 of them already FlashPay-enabled. Nets is tapping into small value payments at convenience stores, food and retail outlets and supermarkets.

It estimates that about S$1 billion worth of cash-based transactions in this segment could be converted into electronic payments.