The future may be here sooner than we expected...

A Wall Street Journal Article has reported that plans for a proprietary payment network that involved mobile carriers; AT&T, Verizon Wireless and T -mobile USA have been scaled back. The initial plan called for the three carriers to team up with Discover and Barclaycard to build out a mobile payment network that would allow cell phone customers to use Near Field Communication technology to purchase items directly with their cell phones. In November, these three companies announced their plans to build out the network over the next 18 months. They system, known as Isis, may have been just a little too out of range for the mobile carriers. The Isis business model would have put the mobile carriers in direct competition with financial giants, Visa and MasterCard.

Now however, these companies say they are going to instead market a "mobile wallet" that can store and exchange information from credit cards that their customers already use. The carriers are now in talks with Visa and MasterCard to have them participate.

What this all means is that we may be closer to buying that Snapple at the drugstore with our cellphones than we think. Instead of having to wait for the cell phone carriers to set up their payment network, they simply use the credit card vendors network that is already in place.

Like the saying goes: If you can't beat em, join em...

Visa Invests in Square

It has been reported that the financial services company, Visa, has invested an undisclosed amount of money in the new company of Twitter co-founder, Jack Dorsey, most recent project, Square. Square is a service that allows anyone with an iphone or and android device to accept credit card payments through their phone. With a processing fee of 2.75% per transaction, a user can accept credit card payments through the use of a free credit card reader provided by square. The system also allows the user to accept payment through entering the purchasers credit card information through the use of a cell phone application, although this type of transaction will cost you more than the 2.75% rate. Square accepts most major credit cards, and now with the backing of a financial giant such as Visa, seems well positioned to be a major player in the mobile payment ecosystem.

This is investment gives Visa a seat on the board of Square. This is great for Visa as it allows them to carve out their own piece of the burgeoning mobile payment industry. This could be huge for Visa as Juniper research reports that purchases via mobile devices of digital and physical goods, contactless NFC (Near Field Communications) transactions and money transfers will together generate transactions worth over $600 billion globally by 2013.

Also, the device looks pretty cool and compact which should help potential users with their purchasing decision.