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.

Earlier this year we reported that Visa was acquiring South African mobile financial services company Fundamo for around £68 million.

It’s now announced the first Visa product using Fundamo’s platform, which will enable financial institutions and mobile network operators to offer Visa prepaid accounts on mobile phones.

Visa has announced a beta version of a free digital wallet service called V.me by Visa. It’s just available in the USA and Canada at the moment.

V.me, which is expected to launch publicly in 2012, is designed to let shoppers pay online and in person by using a PC, tablet or mobile phone.

This week sees Iain taking a rare break from The Fonecast, so it’s up to Mark and James to hold the fort. They start with Nokia’s Windows Phone announcement before moving on to Visa Europe’s big investment in mobile payments, Sony’s split with Ericsson, Samsung’s smartphone success, a new design-led BlackBerry and some wide-ranging patent news from Apple.

Listen to the programme on our website audio player, via iTunes, by subscribing to our RSS feed or by downloading the MP3.

Mobile banking and payment company Monitise plc has announced a £24.7 million investment from Visa Europe.

As part of the agreement, Visa Europe President and Chief Executive Peter Ayliffe will join Monitise as a non-executive director. Monitise already has a relationship with Visa Europe and with Visa Inc.