Tech giants eye mobile payment

Wells Fargo and Company is testing a mobile payment pilot programme with Visa, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The pilot programme comes on the heels of a mobile payment joint venture revealed last month between three major US wireless carriers. The developments underscore tension among card lenders and wireless companies over who controls the mobile payment network.

Wells Fargo's pilot will include 200 of its employees who use specific BlackBerry and iPhone models. BlackBerry users will insert a chip into their device, while iPhone users will use a protective case in addition to the chip.

Credit cards were on the decline even though all other electronic payment methods rose in a three-year period between 2006 and 2009, according to a Federal Reserve report, states The Epoch Times.

In 2009, there were 21.6 billion credit card payments, which value at $1.9 billion, compared with 21.7 billion credit card payments in 2006.

Despite the rejection of credit cards, all other electronic forms of payment increased 9.3% since the last Fed study in 2007. In 2009, there were more than 84 billion electronic payments with a $40.7 trillion value.

Supporters of WikiLeaks attacked the Visa and MasterCard Web sites after the bank card networks cut off donation transactions to the online anti-secrecy organisation that disclosed hundreds of thousands of classified cables, says Digital Transactions.

However, both Visa and MasterCard say their transaction networks had not been hacked and were functioning normally.

A MasterCard spokesperson says: “Our core processing capabilities have not been compromised and cardholder account data has not been placed at risk. While we have seen limited interruption in some Web-based services, cardholders can continue to use their cards for secure transactions globally.”