Mobile Unified Communications Featured Article

In the latest round of financing, mobile payments provider Payfone has secured $19 million in strategic funding. American Express (News - Alert) is the largest strategic investor in this round of funding, with additional investment from Verizon Investments Inc. (assisted by Verizon Ventures), Rogers Ventures, as well as from existing investors Opus Capital, BlackBerry (News - Alert) Partners Fund and RRE Ventures.

According to the investors, the new funds will be utilized to continue innovations in its market approach and to support Payfone’s global expansion across North America, EMEA, Latin America and Asia.

"The payments industry is going through a fundamental transformation, with the move to digital payments becoming the primary driver. Payfone is well positioned to lead the next wave of innovation in mobile payments and commerce and we look forward to working with the Payfone leadership team to evolve Serve, our new digital payments platform, to provide the most flexible and secure payment solutions for buyers and sellers," said Dan Schulman, Group President, Enterprise Growth, American Express, in a statement.

Created to radically change the mobile payment paradigm, Payfone was founded by industry veteran Rodger Desai in 2008. It is the culmination of over 50 years of combined payment processing, telco, and web 2.0 expertise. Payfone is unique in leveraging the existing assets of mobile operators, such as the global SS7 signaling network for directly connected payment authorization and processing.

"Strategic investment from major operator players like Verizon (News - Alert) Investments Inc. and Rogers Ventures, as well as backing from a prestigious financial institution like American Express is not only a testament to our unique approach, but it also demonstrates our industrial strength offering," stated Rodger Desai, co-founder and CEO, Payfone, in another statement.

He added, "Mobile payments will form a major cornerstone in operator and merchant digital payment strategies moving forward. We look forward to enabling operators to participate in the transaction flow and benefit from an entirely new revenue source, while driving home our own mission to make the mobile phone number the accepted way to pay."

Unlike other market players, Payfone leverages the security already built into the mobile operator network for mobile payment processing. This deep network access allows for the authorization of credit card, debit and mobile operator billed payments, dramatically reducing fraud, charge-backs and identity theft, said Payfone.