Banks and mobile operators have been vying to dominate the mobile payments space but Silicon Valley companies could end up reaping the richest rewards.Read more

It has been 12 years since the first person famously bought a Coke from a specially adapted vending machine in Scandinavia using their mobile phone. Yet, the anticipated  mass market adoption of such mobile wallet services has not taken place.  Alcatel-Lucent hopes to change that, announcing March 23 that it will run a new global hosting service for mobile operators wishing to launch person- to- person payment, remote ticketing and mobile commerce services.Read more

Obopay is a mobile payment service that allows users to get, send and spend money. It works on all handset models and currently powers the mobile payment systems of MasterCard MoneySend in the U.S. and Nokia Money globally. Obopay sees its biggest opportunity in the developing world, where some 2.5 billion adults have no access to banking but a growing number have mobile phones. It is one of 26 companies named a 2010 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum.Read more