Mobile money round-up: new services, anti-fraud and iPhone

The UK and Canada both have stories about the fight against fraud when it comes to mobile banking. We’ve also got a new Canadian service being rolled out by Virgin Mobile (or Bell Canada, if you like), and yet another mobile payment application for the iPhone.

Anti-fraud guidelines for mobile payments accepted by UK government:

In co-operation with various the mobile phone and banking industry, the UK governent has created a set of guidelines to make mobile banking more secure. These guidelines are dealing primarily with “contactless” payment methods. What we mean by that is payment options that allow your phone to be used like a swipe card for transactions. Using extremely short-range wireless communications, your phone can be waved over a reader at any shop checkout, and the payment will be automatically debited to your account. To ensure that fraud and criminal abuse of this system is kept to a miminum, the Home Office has created a set of limitations, including maximum transaction sizes and a rapid system to disable payment functions on lost/stolen devices.

Canadian bank adopts SMS to fight fraud:

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a service like this, and I doubt it will be the last. Canadian institution Cost Capital Savings has created an SMS-alert system to help prevent mobile and on-line banking fraud. The bank will send an SMS to a customer whenever something potentially fraudulent happens with their account. So if a withdrawal or a deposit is too large, the customer gets notified. If the account is blocked because someone is getting the password wrong, or the personal access code is changed, the customer gets notified.

Momentum Payment launches new iPhone credit card app:

A new iPhone application from Momentum Payment allows merchants to process credit card transactions over their iPhones. This is particularly useful for self-employed workers who work in the field, or for companies who have a mobile workforce. However, it’s also a service we’ve seen quite a number of times before.  Does Momentum have any advantages? It does have a pretty cool “off-line” function, for customers that the merchant is happy to trust. If the iPhone can’t connect to the web, they can still process the payment by “storeing” the transaction on their phone. It will then be approved as soon as a connection is re-established.

Virgin Mobile rolls out Zoompass m-payment service in Canada:

Another Canadian story. Virgin Mobile, which was recently completely acquired by Bell Canada, has rolled out the Zoompass m-payment service. Zoompass works with Mastercard to enable a pretty good suite of payment services on their mobile. The service sets you up with a mobile Zoompass account, which you can access on your computer or on your mobile via a downloadable app. It allows you to se your phone to pay for goods anywhere that takes Mastercard. It also allows you to transfer money to other Zoompass users – and here’s where Zoompass has hit on a fun trick. You can send money people who DON’T have a Zoompass account, if you want. But in order to access that money, the recipient has to download and register with Zoompass -  and all of the details on how to do that are included in the notification SMS they with your money.