Express is opening a new Times Square location in New York, and making mobile a crucial part of the in-store experience with interactive iPads, charging stations and mobile point of sale. The new store will officially open on Tuesday, March 25 at 7 p.m. ET with a performance by Robin Thicke. In addition to the in-store elements, the location will also be holding a mobile sweepstakes to celebrate the new store. "Time Square has always been the square-of-the-future for retail and advertising," said Gary Schwartz, Toronto-based author of "The Impulse Economy" and "Fast Shopper, Slow Store." "I cannot count the …

Mobile Commerce Solutions Ltd (MCSL), a pre-paid/remittance provider with the m-Pesa platform, has started a pan-India inter-bank money transfer service by joining hands with the Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) of NPCI. With this tie-up, an MCSL (m-Pesa) user can send money to customers of any IMPS-enabled bank using NPCI's remittance platform, NPCI said in a statement. The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is the umbrella organisation of all retail payment systems in India, set up with the support of the Reserve Bank of India and Indian Banks' Association. "Currently there are 60 banks and five pre-paid service providers as …

Mobile e-commerce will be the focus of competition in Chinese e-commerce market in 2014, according to IDC's Top 10 Predictions for Chinese Internet industry. This increase in competition is due to growth in the number of mobile Internet users and mobile e-commerce transactions. The scale of Chinese mobile e-commerce market is predicted to reach RMB 155.22 billion (US$ 24.976b) in 2014. This represents an increase of 67.9% compared to 2013 and exceeds the 28% average growth of Internet retail market for the same period.

Walgreens-owned Duane Reade has decided to leverage weather-forecasting service Poncho to deliver relevant coupons to New Yorkers within the service's SMS and email weather alerts. Poncho sends customized weather alerts to consumers via SMS and email, and these alerts will now contain relevant Duane Reade coupons. The coupons will specifically target users in alerts related to seasonal allergies. "The Poncho weather alert service seemed like a natural fit for Duane Reade to collaborate with during allergy season," said Calvin Peters, public relations and digital communications manager at Duane Reade, New York.

UK mobile commerce outfit Zapp says it is hopeful of bringing more major banks onboard ahead of its launch later this year but has still not gone public with any retail partners. Set up by VocaLink in 2013, Zapp is aiming to bring real-time mobile payments - in store, online and through apps - to millions of Brits by integrating its system into bank apps and tapping into the Faster Payments rails.

Set up by VocaLink in 2013, Zapp is aiming to bring real-time mobile payments - in store, online and through apps - to millions of Brits by integrating its system into bank apps and tapping into the Faster Payments rails. In January five major financial institutions - HSBC, first direct, Nationwide, Santander and Metro Bank - committed to embedding Zapp within their phone and tablet apps, bringing the technology to their 18 million customers. However, as it targets 20 million users by 2017 and promises to rival traditional payments giants such as Visa and MasterCard, the startup is working hard …

Best Buy and 7-Eleven have announced that they will be shutting down their near-field communications capabilities in their retail locations, pointing to further struggles for NFC-based mobile payments. NFC has been weak to take off as a mobile payment technology despite the efforts of Google Wallet and Isis. Best Buy and 7-Eleven are realizing that it is not worth the cost for them, while at the same time hinting at the possibility of branded plays for their own mobile payment solutions. "NFC was enabled at some 7-Eleven locations several years ago," said Margaret Chabris, director of corporate communications at 7-Eleven, …

MillerCoors is inserting itself into millennials' beer decision-making process via a series of digital and mobile content partnerships spanning in-application advertising, music streaming and original content. Some of the partnerships are more mobile-centric then others, but all of them realize the need to reach consumers digitally to meet the demands of young, tech-savvy consumers. The partnerships cover several different brands and a variety of mobile apps, including Spotify, UrbanDaddy's Next Move and Instagram.

Sionic Mobile, a mobile-commerce company providing mobile marketing, gifting, payments and rewards, today announced it has added and now features the ability to pay with Google Wallet in its ION Rewards app for Android, available for free in Google Play. For a limited introductory period, users will get paid double ION rewards, 2 percent of their purchase amount, each time they check out using the "Buy with Google" option. ION bills itself as the first fully digital cloud-based mobile-commerce platform and may be used at more than 25,000 retail and restaurant locations including Lowe's, Staples, Sephora and Papa John's Pizza, …

The People's Bank of China has issued two drafts concerning regulations for online payment providers. The regulations are meant to introduce new restrictions on the digital finance sector in order to provide more protections to consumers and businesses concerning mobile commerce. Mobile payments are still quite new and lack any comprehensive regulatory structure. Without adequate regulation, mobile payment services are not required to adhere to any specific standards, therefore leaving some consumers exposed to possible exploitation due to lack of security. The People's Bank of China has met with several organizations that operate within the mobile commerce field. The central …