Christmas is approaching but that’s not stopped the mobile phone industry from delivering a week of diverse headlines.

We start today’s podcast by talking about the much-reported complaints involving Orange UK’s tariffs and Carrier IQ’s monitoring before moving on to cheerier topics, including a new MVNO, another free WiFi service and two new mobile payment deals.

Mobile banking and payment company mFoundry, which recently announced a partnership with MasterCard, has confirmed it’s received an investment of $18 million (£11.5 million) in growth capital.

The investment was led by MasterCard along with Intel Capital, FIS and Motorola Mobility.

MasterCard and US-based mobile banking company mFoundry have announced an international partnership that’ll that let more banks give their customers the option to pay for items with their mobile phones.

mFoundry has also received a strategic investment to from MasterCard.

Mark Bridge writes:

Having read some of last week’s headlines, you might think the UK’s Communication Ombudsman has told mobile phone networks not to describe their data tariffs as ‘unlimited’ unless they really are. However, what’s actually happened is that one of the UK’s communication ombudsmen (ombudspeople?) has asked mobile operators to be clear about any limits, to stop unexpectedly high bills from building up and to tell customers before they exceed any limit. Better than nothing but hardly earth-shattering.

Intel and MasterCard have announced a partnership that’s designed to create a safer and simpler checkout process for online merchants and consumers.

The plan is to enhance the payment options for consumers who are shopping on an Intel-powered ‘ultraportable’ Ultrabook or future generations of Intel-based PCs.