Archive for 'Tech' Category

By Justin Boyle

If you live in Austin, Texas, like I do, you've seen it plastered all over town. Austin is one of two U.S. cities -- along with Salt Lake City, Utah -- that have been chosen for the pilot roll-out of the Isis Mobile Wallet. Isis is yet another brand name to enter the mobile payments frenzy, and it promises to "transform your buying experience."

By now, MBB readers are as familiar with mobile payment apps as anyone. These apps aim to link your credit card accounts together in a single smartphone application, with the stated purpose of saving you the monumental hassle of handing your card over to a cashier and, later, physically signing a small slip of paper.

It's natural to wonder if the Isis Mobile Wallet has got anything going for it other than an aggressive marketing campaign. Does it offer anything that the existing stable of mobile payment apps doesn't already offer? We've done the homework so you don't have to.

By Justin Boyle

I still carry cash. Most people I know look at the paper folding stuff I pull out at the coffee counter and barely recognize it. Back in the late '90s, when primitive electronic devices like debit cards were becoming more popular, a good friend of mine told me that paper money would be obsolete in less than 10 years.

He was wrong, it turns out, but maybe only in the length of time he gave it. With the recent release of Google's cloud-based online wallet, cash might be more in danger than ever of a complete electronic takeover ...

By Justin Boyle

I remember 2004. Smartphones were barely recognizable by today's standards. They had physical keyboards, tiny, non-touch screens and the newfound capability to send and receive email. Things have changed a lot in eight years.

Looking back on those days, it's easy to notice how many parts of formerly everyday life have vanished thanks to leaps and bounds of advancement in smartphone technology...

By Megg Mueller

Ho Ho Holy cow, have I been shopping online lately. I shop locally every chance I can, but there are some Internet shopping sites that offer such great deals. Throw in free shipping, and my credit cards and keyboard have been getting a workout. As an avid Web consumer, I have been reading with great interest the stories about online security issues, mobile payment glitches and the scariest words to an online shopper like myself: identity theft.

People still worry about typing their credit card numbers into the shopping cart forms. Clearly I don't, but according to a Javelin Strategy & Research Consumer study done in September of this year, many people still aren't comfortable when it comes time to hit the "place order" button...

By Rich Mintzer

Nicki, a college student, decides it's time for a new laptop. She finds exactly what she wants online, but can't buy it because she does not have a credit card. Her close friend offers to put it on her card, but she's already over her card limit. These are not uncommon situations; in fact, a quarter of U.S. citizens do not have credit cards while so many more are in credit card debt. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, cardholders topped $886 billion in credit card debt in 2010, and that number is expected to top $1.1 trillion this year.

The alternate route

With those sobering statistics in mind, entrepreneur Danny Shader thought it was time to revitalize the basic concept of paying by cash for those without plastic, those who abuse it and those who don't want to write checks on their savings accounts to make loan payments. "We have built a transaction network, as opposed to just a payment network, which lets people make full transactions with cash," explains Shader, CEO of PayNearMe, the cash payment service that launched in the fall of 2010.

The PayNearMe cash payment process is relatively simple. Consumers purchase products online and choose PayNearMe at checkout as a means of payment. They then print a sales slip and take it to the nearest 7-Eleven where they pay in cash. The cashier simply swipes the slip, which completes the transaction. The purchase is shipped to the customer's home, not unlike paying online with a credit card.

By Clark Schultz

I have always thought of banks as the bad guys. They charge too much on my credit card balances. They pay too little interest on my savings. And they charge me fees for every little thing. In the last couple of years we even had to endure our tax dollars going to bail out banks that went a little crazy with their lending.

Lately, though, I have started to look at banks differently. In the last year, banks have become more responsible with their lending and have implemented features and services that are useful to me. And it looks like that is just the tip of the iceberg. I think 2011 is the year that banks become the good guys again.

Here are six banking innovations to look for in the coming year that can help make life easier: