Have you ever needed to send money to someone quickly, and couldnt run into your bank for a swift payment? Here’s what Obopay offer as service.

All you need is a mobile phone, and it only takes a few minutes to get started.

1. Sign up for Obopay
2. Link your bank account or credit card
3. Send money in three easy ways:
   • Text message
   • Obopay phone application
   • Your phone’s web browser

Sign up

> Learn how Obopay works

Did Someone Send You Money?

If someone used Obopay to send you money, you can collect it right away, and you don’t even need to sign up for an Obopay account.

> Pick up money

Add Obopay to your site.

Send and receive money from friends and customers by adding Obopay to your favorite site, including MySpace, facebook, eBay, and more.

> Add the Obopay widget

This seems so simple has anyone had any experience with it?

What features would you like your online payment company or bank to offer? Write a comment and tell us.

yours in money,

Moneypenny

Our Partners Include:

Just announced over several private email lists, is the statement from OmniPay that their US operations have been purposely and temporally suspended while they move operations to Africa. This move, is long overdue.

The surprise here is NOT the fact they are moving jurisdictions (I hope e-gold Ltd follows) the surprise comes from the new African jurisdiction. However, its widely known that Africa has opened their business environment to foster new technology such as mobile payments and digital currency.

Just as Webmoney works with tailor made local regulations in it’s home town of Russia, e-gold’s OmniPay business model should be well accepted and ideally suited for positive growth headquartered in West Africa.

This area of the world has made a rapid sublimed move from no consumer banking directly into futuristic m-commerce and digital money. I’ve written about the growth of e-money and mobile banking in Africa many times. Its a great move for OmniPay and a real treat for Africa.

Democracy/Hypocrisy

The post 9/11 United States regulations, which are choking some of the life out of US online business, seem hell bent on defeating any future growth of digital money or private currency. That includes DGC (digital gold currency), GSM mobile commerce, private barter money such as the Liberty Dollar, payments for online gambling and the list goes on…. Instead of building constructive regulations and taxing online business, the US has fostered an environment of ‘fear’ which has ultimately killed many digital business deals in just the past 12 months.

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All month long I am going to be taking a closer look at Webmoney Digital Currency. Their growth in the past several years has be extraordinary and I want to find out why.

• What is Webmoney doing to have such a positive effect on their sales and customer base?
• Where is Webmoney expanding their markets and capturing new users?

I’d also like to compare the WM business model to other digital currencies to find what how they differ from older or more ‘western’ currencies. It should be an exciting and informative month. Stay tuned.

For all of you Skype users, the Skype-PayPal upgrade has arrived. The latest upgrade for Skype including the PayPal feature is now available for download.

This new feature is simple to use. The sender and receiver just need to have PayPal accounts and even easier, the receiver can create their PayPal account after the funds are sent. Of course this feature does not change the limitations users are always subject to with PayPal accounts. However, if you are using this new Skype function and send funds to any country where it cannot be received, the funds are reported to be placed back in your account. No fees or loss. You can read more about this feature in their user guide or give it a try and download it here.

Comments & reviews of this new service are welcome here.

Webmoney is what I consider a digital money ‘mover & shaker’. The aggressive online currency company is changing, adapting and quickly growing along with it’s Internet financial surroundings. I like Webmoney and write about them often *1,2,3,4. If you don’t yet have a Webmoney account, I would invite you to take a few minutes and set one up, its free and as an online payment tool its hard to beat their advantages.

Webmoney is a very secure ewallet or as most call it an ‘electronic purse’. I still carry a wallet and not a purse so I’m just going to go with ewallet! This is a non-U.S. system and in today’s world as we all know, that means added privacy. WebMoney Transfer’s underwriter on WMZ and WME transfers is non other than Amstar Holdings Limited, S.A. located down here is sunny Panama.

Low transaction fees & secure internal chat with other users allow this global electronic currency to be accepted by many businesses both online and offline. The total sum of transactions for 2006 was over $1.45 Billion USD and that included over 15 million individual transactions between users. Perhaps one of the best features of this company is the fact that they cooperate with other businesses and work to create new financial services and payment solutions. They encourage the use of Webmoney for local payments and exchange.

Webmoney, has also teamed with Ukash, a great electronic voucher system, which is both anonymous and fraud proof. This allows online users across Europe the convenient opportunity to spend and shop online but pay using their local cash. In the UK and Europe, Ukash offers over 100,000 local payment ‘terminals’ which permits anyone to purchase a ‘voucher’ using cash. Then on their home PC, that voucher is instantly converted to Webmoney online currency.

These sales ‘terminals’ are conveniently located throughout the UK, Germany, Ireland and Spain in places like newsagents, grocery stores, petrol forecourts and other walk in locations. They make it easy for anyone with cash to buy digital Webmoney. Also, unlike other pre-paid online products, Ukash charges NO FEE to the consumer at the point of purchase. That lack of a fee ensures that local cash users are not discriminated against during their online spending. (Leading Gaming sites now also accept Ukash) Webmoney users can now spend their cash locally and top-up their Webmoney ewallet (purse :-). This partnership makes online commerce widely accessible to the millions of people who don’t currently have a credit card or bank account and that is exciting innovation.

Webmoney is adopting and growing along with the world’s appetite for digital money. They are producing new products, teaming with other financial companies and inviting new business both online and offline. They even offer a financial social network called WebMoney Debt Service. Similar to Prosper.com and other largely popular online loan networks, Webmoney Debt Service, lets you borrow funds in Webmoney.

Its really amazing to try and keep up with this company’s innovation and growth. I have been comparing Webmoney’s growth with other popuar DGCs….watching how they[WM] keep up with the ever expanding online financial world while other popular e-currencies like e-gold don’t even offer blog or a proper mailing list. Yes, we still love you e-gold but for how long? The competition is getting tougher and can anyone picture a world where Webmoney offers a transparent gold backed product denominated by weight….hmmmm. That one is on the top of my Christmas list.

Today, we continue building our “The Ultimate - Alternate Payment System (APS)“.

I’m looking for a global common denominator of value which may be used as the financial base or backing for our digital currency. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about - try to picture this….when you log in and fund your PayPal account, or any other online payment system, you will be adding dollars of local national currency and receiving digital dollars into your online account. More accurately, you will be receiving ‘digital dollar units’. For each one dollar you add, you will receive one ‘digital unit’ labeled a dollar.

After funding your account, that dollar of local money received by PayPal is now being held on deposit while you make use of their digital dollar. If you were to add $1000 USD to a PayPal account, they might then be holding your $1000 in a money market account along with the other millions which change hands daily in their system. Remember, if a million digital dollars are issued, one million USD are held in that reserve account. Thus you can say that the US dollar are being used as the base of the system. US Dollars back the digital dollars.

If our new digital money is to be used in every country and by every household around the world, what national currency would we want to back our ‘digital dollar units’? What money would be in our ‘reserve’ account on deposit against all of the issued ‘digital dollars’?

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For several years now I have been saying that PayPal is out to rule the world. Former PayPal COO David O. Sacks is now out to map the world’s population using a giant family tree. The new web site Geni.com was recently launched and their press release states the site is one of the 1st to use ‘web 2.0′ social media, mass collaboration and user-generated content for genealogy.

Geni, Inc. was bank rolled by Founders Fund in San Francisco. Its also no surprise to learn that this is the venture capital company which was founded by former PayPal CEO Peter Theil.

CTO for the Geni, Inc and co-founder is Alan Braverman. Alan if you recall also founded Xoom another giant international money transfer company. I see a trend here :-)