Paypal competitor (Score 1)

There's a company here in Iowa that basically does this. Called Dwolla, it's a person-to-person payment system designed with mobile phones in mind. You have a mobile money account with money drawn from your bank account and a ten-digit ID code. When you want to pay for something in a store, the vendor gives you their ID code and a transaction number. Punch that into your cell phone with a PIN and money moves from your account to theirs in the space of a few seconds. Transaction fees are cheap because Dwolla uses a local bank's clearinghouse system without the burden of Visa or Mastercard licenses and fees. And your bank information is accessed separately from a secure web site with a different password, so even if someone should intercept the transaction information, they don't get any useful information about you or your financial accounts. I'm not sure if Dwolla will ever gain much acceptance outside the region, the founders are working on a shoestring VC budget and just started marketing in their first city outside the state (Omaha). It's a pretty slick implementation, though.