Having just recently moved from London to the San Francisco Bay Area, I am going through the process of learning about the best payments and technology groups, forums and clubs in this area.  Many of these groups also have on-line resources that make some, and in some cases most, material easily accessible to everybody.  Below is a list with some of the best groups I have found for your reference.

BayPay Forum: If you are a member of the payment industry, you are invited to join BayPay, a networking group of the Silicon Valley focused on payments and composed exclusively of members in the payment community or investors in this area.

Within LinkedIn:  Search for BayPay in the Groups Directory.  It is a very active group with almost 3,000 members.  Aside from being a great source of news and information, its greatest value resides in the interaction among members.  

From my experience, everybody is very responsive and posts turn into meaty conversations frequently.  All members are payment experts and most are willing to continue conversing off-line either on the phone or in person.    

BayPay Website:  Registering is free and easy to do.  It will give you access to 1) A list of BayPay organized and sponsored events around the world;  2) Videos of past presentations;  3)  Key payment news and 4)  Access to other payment experts.Make sure to introduce yourself to Daniel Chatelain, Founder and Managing Director of The BayPay Forum.  He is very knowledgeable and has many great contacts in the area.
PYMNTS.COM and NYPAY:  Although these organizations are not based or focused on the Bay Area, they are also great sources of information and contacts.  Most people linked to BayPay are also active in PYMNTS.COM and, although NYPAY seems to be much more ‘popular’ among East Coast professionals, it is growing fast around the world.  Both have LinkedIn Groups as well as their own websites.  I would also recommend reaching out to David True, President and Board Member of NYPAY - another great contact to have in the industry.

Link Silicon Valley: It is a directory with over 10,700 companies comprised of IPO companies, startups, acquired or liquidated companies, and VC firms. It helps its users connect with the people who build and fund the technology companies of Silicon Valley.  

The core information provided includes contact information of key management, outside board members, VCs, customers, strategic partners, and other information typically found in corporate press releases. You can view information, which is updated daily, from lots of different angles and ‘connect all the dots’. 

You can access some of the information for free and then subscribe to have full access.  Give it a try.  It’s worth it!  And do not hesitate to also reach out to Bob Karr, the CEO and Founder of Link Silicon Valley.  He is fun, extremely welcoming and always in-the-know.

Churchill Club:  Their focus is ‘to cultivate a one-stop-shop of world-class people—people like yourself—that ignites the kinds of conversations that lead to new ideas, enlivened dreams and personal motivation.’  The Churchill Club, with over 6,500 members, hosts between 30 and 40 events each year, all of them featuring industry and government local and national leaders.  The events are a great opportunity to learn, be inspired and meet very interesting people. 

MIT/Stanford Venture Lab:  It is ‘the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the MIT Enterprise Forum, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the growth and success of high-tech entrepreneurial ventures by connecting ideas, technology and people.’  Although I have not yet attended any of their events (they do not run any in July, August and December), a few friends of mine have raved about them.  No wonder considering that MIT and Stanford are involved!

SVForum: It ‘fosters innovation, entrepreneurship and leadership within the Silicon Valley ecosystem of individuals and businesses participating in emerging technologies.’  It focuses on ‘1) Creating connections and community; 2) Providing education and access to resources’ 3) Linking the global business community to Silicon Valley, and 4) Facilitating the exchange of unbiased knowledge, insights and best practices.’

They have developed 12 different Special Interest Groups (SIGs) that range from Business Intelligence and Health Care IT to Digital Media and E-Commerce.  Whatever your interest, they are probably covering it!

MeetUp:  A lot of Bay Area groups post their activities and meetings on MeetUp.  It is free to register / use the site and it has many tools to help you find interest groups near your location.  For example, it was via MeetUp that I follow SVForums Marketing SIG activites and that I found Women Entrepreneurs of the Bay Area (WEBA).

There are endless opportunities to learn and network in the Bay Area and I am happy to now be local and have easy access to all of them!  Let me know of other groups that have been helpful to you.

From the Financial Times by Elaine Moore:  Mobile phones will take over from plastic cards and cash as the principal method of payment before the end of the decade, according to new industry forecasts.  But payment providers admit that concerns about the security of cashless transactions – heightened by this week’s software failure at RBS – may deter consumers for some time.  Continued.

Trish’s Comment: 

Many companies have launched mobile payments initiatives ahead of London 2012 wanting to take advantage of the great showcasing and testing opportunities The Games provide.  Moore lists some of them:  Visa’s partnerships with Samsung promoting contactless cards and NFC-based mobile payments, Barclay’s PayTag – a payment tag that sticks to the back of your phone and allows payments of up to £15 - and Pingit – an app that allows you to send money to others using their cell number – and O2 Wallet.  Other interesting ones are PayPal’s inStore – it is being trialed at the Auroria Fashions Group stores and it allows you to pay using a barcode that uniquely identifies your PayPal account – and QuickTap – payment app launched by BarclayCard in collaboration with Orange for NFC-enabled phones.

Now that we are well into the second week of the London 2012 Games, the question is:  Have all these initiatives been able to leverage the Olympics as expected?  Have they gathered the attention and generated the hype that they may have been hoping for?

In my opinion, the answer is yes for Visa and its partnership with Samsung and no for the rest of them, at least not in the very short term.  The focus is on what is happening in the Olympic venues, where Visa – as a key sponsor of London 2012, as of all Olympic Games in the last 25 years – has the exclusive rights to provide payments services.  This leaves everybody else pretty much out of the game for these two weeks.

So, how are Visa and Samsung faring?  Have they managed to make the best of this opportunity?

The answer may be yes from an ‘educational’ perspective.  They have grabbed the opportunity to educate the public about contactless and mobile payments and clearly tied both to the speed and performance of the athletes.  The commercial titled ‘Usain Bolt vs. London’ is a great example of this:  It shows all three ways of paying with Visa – swipe (well, its European version with chip & pin), contactless using a card and contactless using a phone.  All working fast and helping you keep life flowing.