FBI RAIDS SUSPECTED 'ANONYMOUS' HACKERS HOMES

The FBI raided the homes of three hackers from the infamous hacking group ‘Anonymous’ in New York, Fox News reported on Tuesday. Reportedly, more than 10 FBI agents stormed the house of Giordani Jordan in Baldwin New York and took “at least one laptop from the premises.” Jordan is suspected to have been behind denial of service (DoS) attacks against a number of firms, including Mastercard and Visa. In addition, agents are also searching homes in Long Island and Brooklyn. The hackers are said to be in their late teens and early 20s. It’s unclear if the hackers were also part of the group LulzSec, which claimed responsibility for hacks against Sony, the U.S. Senate and the CIA.

ORANGE AND BARCLAYCARD LAUNCH NFC MOBILE PAYMENTS IN UK

Mobile carrier Orange is today launching the UK's first mobile phone contactless payment service, dubbed Quick Tap, for purchases up to £15. It works on MasterCard's PayPass system and requires you to have a Barclays debit or credit card or, alternatively, a credit card from Orange itself.

Gemalto is providing the SIM-based NFC compatibility, with Samsung's entirely unrevolutionary Tocco Lite being the (admittedly affordable) launch handset. Then you just need to trust the Quick Pay app to be as secure as promised and you'll be ready to go off and use your phone as a payment terminal at over 50,000 locations, including joints run by McDonald's, Eat, Pret A Manger, Subway, and Wilkinson.

ISIS MOBILE PAYMENT SYSTEM TO WORK WITH MASTERCARD & VISA, SHELVES OWN SYSTEM

When AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon came together to create the Isis mobile payment system, they touted a standalone service, powered by Discover's payment network, that would revolutionize the way we make small purchases on the move. Well, the revolution is still on schedule, apparently, but the big trio is now being said to have made a concession in reaching out to the incumbent leaders in this field, Visa and MasterCard.

The Wall Street Journal cites multiple sources in reporting that Isis has turned into a less ambitious "mobile wallet" project that would seek to let you use your Visa or MasterCard account via your NFC-capable smartphone. As far as the consumer is concerned, it's still the same swipe-to-buy proposition, but the move was apparently necessary for Isis "to avoid falling further behind" in the race to corner this developing market.

GOOGLE TEAMS WITH MASTERCARD AND CITIGROUP FOR NFC PAYMENTS

The Wall Street Journal reports that Google's secretly partnered with MasterCard and Citigroup to test out a mobile payment system using NFC (Near Field Communications). According to the publication, the early demo pairs "one current model and many coming models of Android phones" with existing Citigroup-sponsored credit and debit cards, and is using the phones' NFC chips with those VeriFone readers we recently reported about.

What's more, a newly-published patent application from the crew in Mountain View may hint at the software behind such things. The application describes a service that sets up Google as a third-party broker who receives the shopping cart info of customers placing orders via a device (including those of the mobile variety), allows them to select shipping and other options, and provides the total order cost. It then collects payment, coordinates shipment, and forwards order information to the seller to complete the transaction. So companies can have Google handle all their payment-taking needs in return for getting a sneak peek at what folks are buying -- something that the WSJ's sources say might be a component of the setup Google's testing right now -- as opposed to other third-party services, like Paypal, that only obtain and exchange payment info with merchants. Looks like Alma Whitten (Google's Director of Privacy) has her work cut out assuaging the concerns such a system will inevitably create in an increasingly privacy-minded populace.

RUMOR: NFC COMING TO NEXT GEN iPHONE AND iPAD

Bloomberg is reporting Apple will be installing near field communication (NFC) chips in the next versions of the iPhone and iPad. This could potentially be huge and finally bring NFC payment systems, without need for a extra accessories (Square) or use of barcodes (Starbucks), to the masses.

Just by waving their NFC enabled device in front of a receiver, users would be able to pay for purchases, much like a credit card. Google is also working on NFC systems for its popular Android devices.

NFC payment systems have been around for some time, at least in theory, but has suffered from a catch-22. Processors, like Visa and Mastercard, refused to implement the backend infrastructure necessary until there was enough demand from consumers. On the opposite side, consumers won't use the systems until they are easily accessible.

If Apple, and Google to an extent, succeeds this will put millions of NFC devices in people's hands, hopefully creating a tipping point for processors to institute the backend processing.

ROAMPAY FOR CREDIT CARD PROCESSING LAUNCHED

Over the past few months it seems like there is a new credit card processing system being launched for the iPhone.  Now, QuickPay Merchant Services is launching a device agnostic service called RoamPay.  With the hardware card swiper and software designed for iOS, Blackberry and Android, you can now accept Mastercard, Visa, Discover and American Express cards, if you have a QuickPay account. [Engadget]