American Express, which recently launched its own online payments service for US residents, has now announced a partnership with mobile payment service Payfone. Payfone will combine its mobile authorisation and payment services with Serve, the new American Express payments platform.

Serve already gives customers in the USA a 'virtual wallet' that can be accessed online and via a mobile app.

10 million online consumers in the UK made a transaction using a mobile device last year, according to the results of a survey commissioned by customer behaviour analysis business Tealeaf.

Shopping was the most popular m-commerce activity, although financial transactions, travel bookings and insurance payments were also popular. The average consumer completed 4.4 mobile transactions per month.

Mark Bridge writes:

It's hardly worth mentioning the new iPad, is it?  Not because I'm unimpressed – although I'd describe it as more of an upgrade than a brand-new product – but because everyone else has been talking about it so much. And we'll be doing some more talking in Wednesday's podcast, so let’s move on...

In this week's edition of The Fonecast we’re paying another visit to GSMA Mobile World Congress. There's an interview with Mary Carol Harris, vice president for mobile development at Visa Europe, and a wide-ranging discussion about mobile payment technologies.

Plus, as usual, the team takes its regular look at all the week’s mobile industry headlines - from Vodafone's network problems to the 4G renaming of Snoop Dogg (or 'Dogggg', as he now prefers).

A new report from Juniper Research says the number of active mobile money users globally will exceed 200 million by 2013. Under 100 million people use these services at the moment.

The report says much of this growth will come from developing countries, where users want a way to access basic financial services.

Mark Windle, head of marketing at OpenCloud, predicts that this year’s reduction in the number of traditional telecoms operators in some countries will provide an opportunity for other operators to innovate and capture market share in 2016.

He says next year will be a year of rapid change for telecoms… whether it’s MVNO disruption, competitive tariff pricing or simply defence from the ‘dark art’ of hacking.

Mark Bridge writes:

The most memorable moments in life often go unrecorded. You don't have your camera in your hands. Your finger is still hovering over the 'pause' button on your audio recorder. Or you were simply too busy experiencing whatever was happening. It's all about the one that got away.

That's where Kapture can help.

Mark Bridge writes:

James Rosewell shows me a colourful roll of paper that's the width of an iPhone but well over three metres long. When I look closer, I can see it's a printed copy of the Wall Street Journal's mobile website. That's a lot of scrolling to do... and a pretty unfriendly user experience for anyone reading the news online. Why does it work so badly?

Iain Graham, James Rosewell and Mark Bridge return to review their mobile industry predictions from last year. Which mergers, partnerships and developments did they forecast correctly... and which didn’t work out as planned?

Later in the programme, the team anticipates some of the topics that will be hitting the headlines during 2016.

Mark Bridge learns about the mobile technology trends at Mobile World Congress 2015 by chatting to James Rosewell of 51Degrees, Dr Kevin Curran from the IEEE and Chris Millington of Doro.

They talk about wearable devices, wireless charging, mobile operating systems and much more... including some of their favourite products from the exhibition.

We're taking a look back at the biggest mobile industry news stories from February 2015, including allegations that the UK's security service tried to breach SIM card security by hacking into one of the world's biggest SIM producers.

We also talk about the planned BT and EE merger, the creation of two new UK virtual networks, some acquisitions in the mobile payment arena and a new Ubuntu smartphone.

In today's programme Mark Bridge talks to Chris Millington, who's Managing Director for Doro UK and Ireland.

They discuss the state of mobile retailing in the UK, the future of wearable devices and - as you might expect - smartphones for seniors.

We're back with a month of mobile industry news, including takeover talks and takeover rumours. O2 and Three are said to be discussing a merger... but is there any truth in the suggestions that BlackBerry could be up for grabs?

We also discuss Apple's record-breaking quarterly figures, the highlights of CES and the launch of Microsoft Windows 10, as well as saying farewell to the current version of Google Glass.