PayPal has opened up its Mobile Payments Library - which lets developers add checkout functionality for physical goods and services to their apps - to Android users. This follows the launch last month of an equivalent library for iPhone handsets and is intended to help developers charge for goods and services sold through applications without having to collect and store debit or credit card information.
The eBay unit has also introduced a PayPal X Toolkit for Google App Engine, a platform for developing and running Web applications and services on the search engine outfit's cloud.
Recent data from Gartner found that Android devices surpassed iPhone sales for the first time in Q1 as smartphone sales to end users reached 54.3 million units, an increase of 48.7 per cent from the first quarter of 2009.
UK mobile money operation Monitise says it has seen a similar surge in the use of m-banking smartphone apps, processing 20 million enquiries and transactions in the last six months. Earlier this year Monitise unveiled a mobile money app for Android phones, available as a free download from the 'Android Market'.
Alastair Lukies, CEO, Monitise, says: "Smartphones are completely changing the face of mobile banking. A sea change is well underway in how people manage their day-to-day finances as they realise how simple, slick and fast mobile banking is - as easy as a few taps on a keypad."
Research house Forrester recently found that European BlackBerry and iPhone users are nearly three times more likely to use mobile banking services than the owners of other handsets.
