Back in January 2011, Starbucks became the first national retailer to offer its own mobile payment technology combined with a loyalty program. It led to more than 100 million mobile transactions occurring in its U.S. stores since the launch. 

Now, in a move to push mobile commerce even further, Starbucks is accepting payments in some 7,000 retail locations via Square, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey's mobile payment app for iOS and Android smartphones. In addition to laying out cash for that latte, users of Square Wallet can browse menu information and store hours, gain access to their transaction history, and even explore nearby businesses. Since Square Wallet is linked to a debit or credit card, there's never a need to reload a balance, and a digital receipt appears instantly.

It's not only been a huge boost for the Square brand (as Dorsey tweeted, "Immensely proud of the teams at Square and Starbucks: 7,000 stores launched 3 months TO THE DAY after signing the deal. #nailedit"). The announcement by Starbucks seems to come at a time of increased activity that could make 2013 the year of mass adoption of mobile payment technology. Indeed, Dorsey this week announced that "Square is now facilitating over $10 billion of commerce annually for small businesses across the US. Up $2 billion in just 2 months."Continue reading...

Visa is launching a beta test of its digital wallet, branded as V.me, with online retailer Buy.com. The PayPal-esque payments system is supported by the credit card brand's new Visa Developer Center that aims to help developers in various fields from gaming, financial, e-commerce and mobile integrate V.me into their products for in-app purchases, currency or direct links to e-commerce check-out pages. 

V.me is offering convenience and "next generation commerce" to Buy.com’s 18 million customers who enter their credit card information once, where it’s stored with Visa, and then create an account with Visa, American Express, MasterCard or Discover. Users will receive alerts and near-real-time transaction notification of transactions on their Visa accounts and personalized offers will be coming soon.Continue reading...