If you saw a $20 bill on the ground, would you pick it up? Sure, everyone loves an extra buck or two, but do you know where that cash has been? A recent study by MasterCard and Oxford University found that even the bills sitting safely in a wallet are likely covered in bacteria. However, the majority of people do not wash their hands after handling cash, even if they are aware of the potentially unhygienic material they are touching. The research found that the average European bank note contained 26,000 bacteria, which could be potentially harmful to a person's …

Vodafone has entered into an agreement with Bluesource - an Austraian software company - to provide a Vodafone Wallet version of its 'mobile-pocket' app - one of the largest and most popular customer cards and shopping apps in Europe. Users can now electronically load all their plastic cards straight into Vodafone's mobile wallet which is located on their phone. This service is free of charge to use and will be placed within the Vodafone mobile wallet. It will be progressively rolled out in countries where Vodafone has already launched its mobile wallet. This begins with Germany, the Netherlands and Spain …

National steakhouse chain Texas Roadhouse has acquired 60,000 subscribers to its mobile database in one year via a variety of loyalty call-to-actions. The Western-themed eatery has taken a location-specific approach to building relationships with diners at their preferred locality through email and SMS communication strategies the past year. Texas Roadhouse partnered with Vibes to execute its efforts. "When it comes to mobile loyalty and SMS, on a personal level my phone is the first thing I check when I get up and before I go to sleep," said Tyler Durham, digital marketing manager at Texas Roadhouse, Louisville, KY.

The Australian bank has partnered with VISA and premium Australian tailors, M.J. Bale, to develop this wearable tech that lets people make contactless payments via Near Field Communication (NFC) technology. This wearable technology garment uses the identical NFC chip that is found in VISA payWave terminals. However, instead of being integrated into a card, the chip is weaved right into the suit's sleeve and is then connected to the account of the "Power Suit" wearer. Once activated, the wearer can then make contactless payments with their suit by simply tapping or waving their sleeve over the payWave terminal.

In future, biometrics will become a pass to the workplace, mobile commerce or real-world shopping and events. The growing presence of biometrics in consumer electronics foreshadows the future of e-commerce, which will ultimately see biometrics being a standard augmentation of SA's online retail platforms. This is according to Simon Leps, CEO of e-commerce development house Fontera Digital Works, and is an outlook that comes in the wake of smartphone giants Apple and Samsung's inclusion of fingerprint scanners in their latest flagship phones.

A recently released report from the United Kingdom has now revealed that as high speed 4G technology achieves greater adoption rates, mobile commerce has also been increasing in its appeal and popularity, as users with faster internet on their smartphones brows and shop more while they're on the go. The report was based on a research survey that was conducted by eDigitalResearch and IMRG, with the participation of 2,000 consumers in the United Kingdom. What they found was the individuals who had access to a 4G connection had a greater likelihood of purchasing a more items using mobile commerce over …

Kevin Gallagher SVP BD of 2Checkout has seen a lot in the payments and commerce industry. He has worked in various firms in this space starting with first data in the sales division, then Nations Bank, United Merchant service and also JP Morgan chase payments. Later joined Merchant e-solution who were into developing e-commerce solutions. The company was sold to a Brazilian firm called Cielo for $680m. Currently at 2Checkout as SVP of Global Business Development he says one of the reasons he joined the firm was because Few Payment Gateways Cover 196 Countries even when Cross-Border Trade is Booming. …

Partnerships have always been a part of mPOS, really since the beginning. They've started to take on a new dimension lately though as largely due to the integration of mobile wallets with POS systems, allowing for the acceptance of mobile payments. This partnership was exemplified recently when Square and Revel Systems joined forces to enable mPOS solutions at Whole Foods but really began in January of 2013 when PayPal and NCR teamed up to deliver PayPal acceptance via NCR . In a recent podcast interview, ROAM CEO Ken Paull told MPD CEO Karen Webster why the relationship between mobile wallets …

The wait is over - Alibaba has officially filed for an IPO with the securities and exchange commission (SEC). The Chinese e-commerce juggernaut's IPO is expected to be one of the largest, if not the largest, public offerings in history. Analysts are projecting the the IPO will raise between $15-$20 billion. To be the largest filing in history, Alibaba would have to beat Visa's 2008 record from its IPO- $19.7 billion reports Reuters. And according to the Wall Street Journal today, analysts estimate that the market may place a value on Alibaba of between $136 billion and $250 billion making …

Leading online retailer eBay has been putting more focus on the mobile sector in recent years. Much of the company's efforts in the mobile field are being handled by PayPal, but eBay has also been flexing its own proverbial muscles in the mobile space, hoping to promote mobile payments among young adults. eBay's Venmo peer-to-peer payments application has seen strong growth recently among this demographic, which suggests that the company's efforts may be paying off. Venmo has become quite popular with young adults on college campuses. Many people are using this application to settle debts among one another or split …