Citi

Vivotech has completed a Series D funding round, bringing the total the NFC and contactless specialist has raised to date to US$96m. New sales figures for the company's POS terminal business have also been released.... More

Dickson Chu, the high profile head of digital networks at Google Wallet financial services partner Citi, has left the banking group to head up a new merchant solutions division at local deals provider LivingSocial. In... More

Citigroup and América Móvil have created a US$50m joint venture to explore opportunities in mobile payments and banking. The venture, called Transfer, will open in Mexico before rolling out to other Latin American countries. América... More

The first public version of the Google Wallet app is being sent out to Sprint customers via an over-the-air software update today.  More

Google is rumoured to be on the verge of launching its long-awaited NFC-based mobile wallet today. More

Google has been field testing its NFC payments service with a large group of users since late May and, from later this summer, anyone with a Nexus S 4G and a Sprint contract will be able to use their phone to make mobile payments at merchants that accept MasterCard PayPass. More

Banks and mobile network operators should work together on a mobile payments business model that plays to both their strengths, says Citi's Dickson Chu. More

NFC specialist Vivotech has closed a US$24 million Series C round of funding. New investors in the company include Singapore's EDBI, SingTel Innov8 and Motorola Solutions Venture Capital. Existing investors Alloy Ventures, Citi Ventures, Draper... More

Google has announced Google Wallet, Google Offers and a Google Prepaid Card, in partnership with MasterCard, Citi, First Data and Sprint. More

The internet giant is set to announce its NFC mobile payments strategy at noon on 26 May in New York. Here are the key things to look for to work out if the company's strategy will succeed — and what it means for the payments industry, the mobile network operators, phone manufacturers, the firm's competitors and the future of Google's own advertising business. More

"We're making a big bet on it as a company," says Stephanie Tilenius, Google's VP of commerce and payments. "There is a lot of potential there." More

Poland is set to roll out NFC-based payment services as early as the third quarter of 2011, according to Polish business publication Puls Biseznu. Six Polish banks — PKO Bank Polski, Bank Zachodni WBK, Citi Handlowy, MultiBank with mBank and ING Bank... More

Google is working with MasterCard and Citigroup on the introduction of NFC mobile payments services, the Wall Street Journal reports: Google Inc is teaming up with MasterCard Inc and Citigroup Inc to embed technology in... More

OPINION: Interest in near field communication is gathering pace in the financial services sector, fuelled by the arrival of NFC-enabled microSD cards and a recognition that there is a business model to be found — so long as you look for it hard enough. More

'This pilot provides insights which will prove crucial to getting the customer experience right as we, together with the industry, bring next-generation mobile financial services to market,' says Citi. More

The financial services giant has partnered with Nokia, Vodafone, MasterCard and Vivotech to launch an NFC field trial in the Indian city of Bangalore.  More

Participants recorded an average transaction amount of $20 during the small scale four month trial. More

Citi M1 Platinum Visa cardholders will be able to use their mobile phones to make contactless payments linked to their credit card account at any merchant equipped to handle Visa payWave contactless transactions. More

The contactless and NFC infrastructure specialist has been granted a broad patent covering the over-the-air provisioning of payments cards, loyalty cards and other non-payments cards to NFC phones — and has also secured an extra US$8.6m in funding. More

Citigroup says it is to run an NFC trial in the Indian city of Bangalore, with the aim of developing a business case that it can present to carriers back in the US. More