"We believed, at one point in time, that mobile payments would be like telecom," said Vijay Shekhar Sharma, C.E.O. of One97 Communication, which runs a mobile payment operator called Paytm.
Scvngr, the start-up that offers a mobile payment service called LevelUp, recently eliminated its transaction fee and is instead bringing in revenue through special campaigns for merchants.
Seth Priebatsch, chief executive of Scvngr, a start-up that offers a mobile payment app called LevelUp, said the move could risk alienating other big retailers.
And at the CeBIT computer show in Hannover, Germany, this past week, Nokia showed off a prototype of a mobile payment system called PayPal.com.
Seth Priebatsch, chief executive of Scvngr, which offers a mobile payment app called LevelUp, said in an e-mail that this was an "awesome deal" for Square, but could be a dangerous move strategically.
But digital payments are also spreading in unexpected places, such as in Kenya, where 25% of its gross national product flows through a mobile payment service called M-Pesa, and Zimbabwe, where debit-card machines are increasingly ubiquitous after devastating hyperinflation made banknotes worthless.
PayPal has launched its mobile payment platform, called, of course, PayPal Mobile.
It's reportedly working with other major retailers on a mobile payment service called Merchant Customer Exchange.
Singtel already has its own NFC-based mobile payment app called Dash for iOS and Android.
And Bank of America is also itself working on a mobile payments solution — a Square-like mobile payment service called MobilePay on Demand, with a dongle that attaches to a smartphone and targeting smaller businesses.
