• Braintree's Bryan Johnson provides columnist James Altucher with an example of "how to go from $0 to $1,000,000 in two years." See Braintree demo at FinovateSpring in San Francisco.

• TransactionAge takes a look at Klarna as an alternative to Google Wallet.

• Digital Mailer's My Virtual StrongBox deployed by Redstone Federal Credit Union.

• Investment News features Finect, a social network for financial advisors. Join them in San Francisco for FinovateSpring.

• miiCard partners with Bitcoin Exchange Platform, Tradehill.

• Innovation Agency updates Innovation Café to support formal judging process and integrated rewards payment process.

• TIO Networks announces partnership with mobile app developer iFactor Consulting.

• Bloomberg Businessweek reports: On Deck Capital Targets Businesses Banks Won't Touch.

• Programmable Web spotlights BancBox API.

• Lemon.ly compares Dwolla and PayPal.

• David Barrett, Expensify CEO, interviewed on SkyNews to talk about Bitcoin. Come check out what's new at Expensify at FinovateSpring next week.

• Best Vendor profiles Gremln. See them in action at FinovateSpring in San Francisco.

• Newfination interviews Adhil Shetty, founder and CEO of BankBazaar.

• Pymnts.com features TipRanks Financial Accountability Engine. Join TipRans in San Francisco for FinovateSpring.

• Klarna co-founder Niklas Adalberth talks about hyper growth in Europe.

• InvestmentNews columnist takes a look at Finect. See them demo at FinovateSpring in May.

• Yodlee forms partnership with London fintech incubator Level39.

• Virtual Piggy wins The National Parenting Center's 2013 Seal of Approval under the Websites category. See it demo live at FinovateSpring.

• Signifyd receives the Merchant Risk Council's 2013 Emerging Technology Award in the startup company category. Come see it demo live at FinovateSpring.

• Engadget reports: PayPal and Discover expand partnership, will reach 2 million stores by year-end.

• PandoDaily looks at Xero's stealth period.

• Billhighway partners with the Automation Alley Fund organization.

• Braintree hires Google Wallet co-creator & former Square employee Rob von Behren as lead software engineer.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

Product development and building partnerships with retailers are at the top of the To-Do List for mobile payment innovator, Zooz, as the company announces the conclusion of a productive round of venture capital funding.

The $2 million in capital from XSeed and others puts Zooz's total capital raised at $3.5 million. The company raised $1.5 million in seed funding in January 2012.

Zooz's payment platform is designed to help merchants improve and get more out of the transactions that go through their websites and mobile apps. The company's solution provides one tap checkout, actionable analytics that provide merchant-specific suggestions, and "device-centric" security and fraud prevention.

Zooz currently has partnerships with companies like MasterCard and First Data, as well as with Finovate alumni like Dwolla, Klarna, and PayPal. Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Israel, Zooz is led by co-founders Oren Levy (CEO) and Ronen Morecki (CTO).

Zooz is one of the companies that will be demonstrating their technology at FinovateSpring in San Francisco in May. To learn more about the event, including information on how to purchase tickets and save your spot, visit our FinovateSpring page here.

• RIA Biz takes a look at BrightScope's plan to make advisory fees public.

• DietBet.com crowdfunds more than $300,000 via SeedInvest. Join SeedInvest in San Francisco for FinovateSpring in May.

• Finovate alumni make a strong showing in GoodApril co-founder's list of tax preparation innovation. Meet GoodApril at FinovateSpring.

• VentureBeat features Ripple developer OpenCoin. See OpenCoin in action at FinovateSpring in May.

• DroidBeans reviews Pageonce for Android.

• Puget Sound Business Journal highlights the role of Realty Mogul in a local real estate deal. Join Realty Mogul at FinovateSpring.

• PayPal buys Iron Pearl, a startup that helps companies make their products more attractive to customers.

• Reuters looks at a case study of how FutureAdvisor is used to save for retirement.

• PYMNTS looks at Kabbage's "secret weapon"

• New York Times Business Day interviews Sabrina Parsons, Palo Alto Software CEO. Come to FinovateSpring to watch it demo LivePlan.

• Channelnomics reports: Check Point Launch Makes Small Branch Foray.

• Dwolla takes top honors at Prometheus Awards in Des Moines.

• Massolution's Crowdfunding Industry Report places Lending Club and Prosper as leaders in the industry.

• Daily Finance features Simple.

• American Banker considers On Deck Capital's growth.

• Alliance Data teams up with Locaid to provide opt-in geofence pilot program for branded cards.

• Blippy launches Tophatter iPhone app.

• Currensee announces Trade Leaders Investment Program.

• Leaf announces Quick Serve POS solution for restaurants. See Leaf in action at FinovateSpring in May.

• Credit Sesame reports growth figures.

• Banno creates 15 responsive design websites in Q1 2013.

• HelloWallet hires 6, bringing total number of employees to 40.

• LG now offers the convenience of purchasing via PayPal on their 2013 line of Smart TVs.

• American Banker reports Fiserv updates its Unified Wealth Management platform.

• Money Marketing features Rplan, Nutmeg, and LoveMoney as startups that appeal to the under-30 crowd.

• Dropbox offers single sign on through partnership with Ping Identity.

• CMO.com interviews Yandex CEO Bernard Lukey is the director of sales and business development.

• GigaOM reports PayPal offers 2 new extensions for Magneto merchants.

• The Economist takes a look at the bitcoin boom, including alternatives like OpenCoin. See OpenCoin demo Ripple at FinovateSpring in May.

• FamZoo and Transcard roll out family banking. Come see FamZoo demo it live at FinovateSpring.

• Sigma Phi Lambda Sorority selects Billhighway for enterprise payment solution.

• Linkable Networks partners with Lyfepoints, enabling users to apply savings to utility payments.

• Business news Daily reports: Dashlane Makes Remembering Passwords a Breeze.

• Bank Systems & Technology reports PayPal partners with Chilean payment network Multicaja.

• HeathWallace & Backbase partner to implement Backbase Bank 2.0 Portal throughout Middle East.

• The Examiner recommends BillGuard to identify fraudulent credit card charges.

• Payments Journal reports Fiserv Launches Remote Deposit Capture Product.

• TechCrunch looks at Yandex's use of gesture-based interfaces to power apps.

• PVAngels features TrustEgg. Join TrustEgg in San Francisco in May for FinovateSpring.

• BrightScope is collecting fee data from advisory firms, report expected by fall 2013.

• MC Helper looks at EyeVerify and the future of internet security. See EyeVerify in action at FinovateSpring.

• Nomis Solutions unveils their latest pricing management software tool, the Nomis Discretion Manager.

• Thomson Reuters announces launch of insurance compliance solution, Accelus.

• InvestorIdeas takes a look at TipRanks. Join TipRanks in San Francisco for FinovateSpring in May.

• TransferWise to provide $100,000 in free international money transfers to 1,000 start-ups.

• Lake Trust Credit Union to be the first CU to deploy MasterCard's MasterPass digital wallet.

• Kalixa Group launches a trio of mobile payment products: Pro, Pay, and Accept.

• Yodlee launches first phase of new Developer Portal.

• VentureBeat looks at how PayPal's new credit alternative for merchants simplifies financing.

• TechCrunch reviews Braintree's Venmo Touch. Come see its live demo at FinovateSpring.

• Yandex announces redesign of homepage that's 50% faster than the previous one. Check out Yandex and FinovateSpring.

• Prosper works with the Securities Division of WA's Dept of Finance to allow Washington residents to lend once again.

• Seattle Business Journal takes a look at Realty Mogul.

• Life360 deploys Locaid to provide customers with free location lookups via smartphone.

• Dignity Folklorist reviews Pageonce for iPhone.

• Business2Community features Wallaby 2.0 for Android.

PYMNTS.com, a website owned by Business Wire and Market Platform Dynamics, recently published the winners of the 2013 Innovator Awards.

Three Finovate alums were selected as overall Best in Show winners:

First place: Pangea Payments

• TransferWise featured in HuffPost Students United Kingdom.

• EZBOB investor John Garfield profiled in The Telegraph.

• Money.co.uk compares money transfers through Azimo.

• Fiserv partners with Romania-based Eutron Invest to provide Cash and Logistics solution portfolio to the Romanian market.

• Forbes looks at the "best of the best" debt crowdfunders including Lending Club, Prosper, Zopa, SoMoLend, Rebirth Financial.

• SecureKey announced availability of its cloud-based briidge.net identity and authentication platform.

• ID Analytics introduces fraud detection solutions for online retailers.

• The Globe and Mail lists Expensify as 1 of 5 apps that take the bumps out of business travel.

• Petter Made, co-founder and COO of SumUp, talks about the advantages of Dublin as a base for business.

• Credit Union Times reports: Fiserv launches SpotPay.

• Finextra reports G&D and PayPal team on pre-paid mobile top-ups in Brazil.

• Practical eCommerce takes a look at Klarna Invoice for OSC programs.

• CSI's globalVCard wins top entrepreneurial prize at 2013 Innovation Project.

• Newfination interviews CurrencyFair's Brett Meyers.

• Temenos to partner with Caisse Financial Group, providing T24, Insight, Temenos Connect.

• ACI Worldwide completes Online Resources Corporation acquisition.

• Standard Chartered Bank moves Africa headquarters from Dubai to Johannesburg.

• TechCrunch reports: Intuit launching Intuit Pay mobile payments service in the UK.

• FIS completes acquisition of mFoundry.

• LearnVest aims to hit 100 planners by year-end.

• Xero introduces payroll essentials.

• TechCrunch reports: PayPal Here takes on Square Register with new iPad payments app.

• SafetyPay and giropay join forces to secure internet payments in Germany.

• TIBCO enhances real time loyalty marketing platform.

• PrintWeek interviews GMC Software Technology COO Michael Watts.

• CSI Enterprises set to announce updates to its globalVCard pay systems solution at the Innovation Project 2013 in March.

• TechCrunch reports: PayPal separates developer platform from X.commerce, launches Simpler mobile APIs.

• Springwise considers the open source nature of TESOBE's OpenBankProject.

• Pindrop Security named the Best Rookie Security Company at the 2013 SC Awards.

• Servant of Chaos reports: SocietyOne eyes off disruption in personal lending.

• Intuit Small Business blog lists Mint and Expensify as 2 of 4 apps to help manage your small business.

• UK Wired Magazine reports BehavioSec invents alternative to passwords using biometric fingerprints.

• Edison Investment Research publishes report covering Virtual Piggy.

• Founder and CEO of Fuze Network, Dave Wilkes, to speak at the 2013 BAI Payments Connect Conference & Expo.

• TSYS makes Ethisphere Institute's list of the world's most ethical companies.

• Opportunity International becomes the first microfinance provider to license analytics solution, Insight, from Temenos.

• ACI Worldwide presenting at Wedbush Securities Transformational Technologies Management Access Conference today.

• PayPal signs agreement with Japan-based Softbank and Nihon PayPal KK to extend the PayPal Here mobile payment service to small businesses and entrepreneurs.

• Cartera Commerce selected by AlwaysOn as OnMedia Top 100 Private Company for third consecutive year.

• MyBankTracker compares Mint, HelloWallet, and Pageonce.

• Billhighway announces availability of Give mobile fundraising application.

• My Money Purdue talks about budgeting with Buxfer.

• Pageonce COO Steve Schultz interviewed by PYMNTS.com.

• MasterCard to deploy Mobile PayPass technology in Brazil, the company's first NFC payment project in Latin America. 

• Social Commerce Today takes a look at Azimo and the multi-billion dollar remittance market. 

Long a staple of alternative payment options in the U.S., PayPal will be making its British debut this summer.

PayPal Here includes a handheld, chip & PIN reading device. This will allow the company to take advantage of the swipe-free, chip & PIN dominated markets of the UK and Europe. The device will be made available to a few British merchants this spring before the official product launch later in the year.

So why did the PayPal cross the Atlantic? Here are a few clues worth keeping in mind:

• VoiceTrust and Finantix partner to provide voice-driven, secure mobile solutions.

• Upstart Business Journal reports ShopKeep and LevelUp partner to keep up with the competition.

• FamZoo introduces Family Pack of prepaid cards through partnership with TransCard.

• Monitise collaborates with Blackberry & Permatabank to launch mobile payments service on Blackberry Messenger in Indonesia.

• Lend Academy features Interview with New Prosper CEO Stephan Vermut.

• SafetyPay partners with Computop to offer SafetyPay as part of its Paygate payment platform.

• EnStream to enable the support of SecureKey's authentication, identity & online payment solutions on mobile phones in Canada.

• Virtual Piggy & WorldPay integrate to deliver youth payment solution internationally.

• Luminous partners with Nihilent Technologies to sell Luminous' solutions in India.

• Tuition.io featured in this week's Venture Capital program.

• Mortgagebot expands space in Mequon with lease for new building.

• PayPal to stop personal payments in Singapore on February 20 due to regulatory instructions.

• iMore.com interviews Kashoo CEO Jim Secord at MacWorld|iWorld 2013.

• TSYS announces acquisition of NetSpend in deal worth more than $1 billion.

• ProfitStars announces year-over-year growth in P2P users, payments for its iPay Solutions service.

• Metaforic's product line now available for mobile apps written in Objective-C, the most commonly used language on iOS platform.

• Delaware Online hails eDeposit as a boon for small businesses.

• ACI Worldwide launches ACI Proactive Risk Manager to help FIs detect payment fraud.

• Bazaarvoice builds new research and development unit, Bazaarvoice Media Labs.

• Jack Henry & Associates add remote deposit capture to Android and iPhone versions of goDough app.

• Opencart announces full integration of Klarna invoice and partial payment system.

When payments companies go to sleep at night, do they dream of Paypal?

Paypal's latest headline-making move is a deal with NCR that will allow restaurant shoppers to take care of their bill using their Paypal account. This comes courtesy of NCR's new mobile payment app, Mobile Pay, launched in December.

In addition to making it easier for consumers to pay the tab (re-order drinks and opine on their evening out via social media), Mobile Pay eventually will allow patrons to place orders from their mobile devices.

There's more to the partnership than a good meal at a nice restaurant, however. The plan is to further integrate Paypal into other NCR products, such as Convenience-Go and Netkey Endless Aisle. Convenience-Go is an app geared toward gas stations, mini-marts, and convenience stores. The Netkey Endless Aisle app is a digital companion for in-store shopping.

How big of a deal is this for Paypal? Here are a few facts and figures about NCR:

• It has 1.2 million point-of-sale systems deployed by retailers
• Its Aloha point-of-sale system is used by more than 60,000 restaurants
• It has deployed more than 100,000 self-checkout kiosks at retailers
• It is used by more than a third of the top 100 U.S. restaurant chains.

This is far from Paypal's only foray into the food business.The company is testing a mobile, pre-order app in 30 McDonald's locations in France. The system allows consumers to order meals ahead of time and pay online. The company is currently testing a similar system with Jamba Juice in the U.S.

Paypal, Retail, and Putting the Shopping Back into Window Shopping

Paypal continues to prove itself more than capable of playing well with others. The company announced new brick and mortar partners in Radio Shack and Dollar General, adding to a roster that already includes a variety of retailers from Aeropostale to Tiger Direct.

With 23 retailers on board nationally as of the end of 2012 Paypal's in-store technology allows shoppers to make payments via a PIN code or a Paypal credit card. One significant attraction of the new technology is that it does not require merchants to swap out their existing payments infrastructure.

And while Paypal has no professed interest in moving merchants away from their current POS systems, the company continues to compete aggressively against traditional credit cards and other mobile payment systems.

In fact, as reported late last year, Paypal is experimenting in Amsterdam with a QR code strategy to really put the "shopping" in "window shopping." When fully implemented, window shoppers will be able to scan and order items they spot in store windows and have them delivered to their homes.

Paypal By the Numbers

• Forecast $10 billion in mobile payment volume in 2012
• Has more than 100 million active accounts
• Provides in-store service at 23 national retailers and 18,000 brick-and-mortar stores
• Plan to have Discover Financial Systems merchant locations accept Paypal payments by Spring 2013

See Paypal's most recent Finovate demo here.

• BillFloat announces $21 million in new funding.

• Jack Henry & Associates launches retail and commercial lending platform.

• Compass Plus completes benchmark testing on HP servers.

• ImpulseSave releases Google Chrome e-commerce plug-in.

• Dashlane partners with Pwnedlist to enhance security alerts. Check out Dashlane's live demo at FinovateEurope next month.

• Mitek to launch Mobile Deposit Alliance, allowing participant banks to share deposit data.

• TechCrunch reports: eBay And PayPal Expect To Do $20 Billion Each In 2013 Mobile Commerce.

• El Paso Electric Company partners with TIO Networks Corp to launch EPE MobilePay.

• Dwolla introduces Guest Send to help developers building bank software make payments from one account to another.

• Bill.com wins Best Software as a Service category of the 2012-2013 Cloud Awards Program.

• Clearstream chooses Standard Chartered Bank as its clearing and settlement agent for its investments in South Africa.

• Payments.com profiles MasterCard Worldwide's initiatives in Africa.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

• Fiserv launches mobile app for UChoose Rewards.

• Paypal is now a payment option for Office Depot online shoppers.

• Affinity Solutions brings "Big Data" capability to card-linked offers.

• StockTwits launches a new app for HootSuite.

• Business Insider looks at Expensify's team building trip overseas.

• HelloWallet launches financial wellness workforce assessment for employers.

• Des Moines Register considers Giftly's remote gift card giving app.

• American Banker reports Lawrence Summers, formerly one of President Obama's top economic advisors, joins Lending Club's board of directors.

• Tyfone is expanding into Latin America through a deal with Protege Sistemas of Brazil.

• Gesa Credit Union chooses Andera's oFlows platform.

• Reuters recommends visiting Betterment, Personal Capital, and LearnVest for year-end money advice.

• BellaDati now runs on Amazon Cloud.

• Bill.com launches new application platform powered by open APIs for third-party developers to integrate native apps with Bill.com's software.

• New miiCard DirectID Check allows SMBs & professionals to perform bank-level ID proofing online.

• With Dwolla, sending money via Twitter just got a lot easier.

• VentureBeat talks with PayPal's Dan Schatt about its integration with Coinstar kiosks.

• Philly.com interviews VirtualPiggy CEO, Dr. Jo Webber.

• The Australian reports: Cloud computing firm Xero could give Reckon a run for its money.

• Union State Bank of Fargo chooses Andera's oFlows platform for online account opening and lending.

• Credit Union Journal reports KBR Heritage FCU To Offer Geezeo.

• AndKeepGoing.com reviews TradeKing.

• Renaud Laplanche, Lending Club CEO, hints at IPO.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

Online payments platformPayPal made two key announcements earlier this week.

First, it announced that PayPal Here is being sold at 1,800 AT&T stores nationwide. The payment dongle costs $15, but you can recoup that money after signing up for a PayPal Here account. In comparison, PayPal Here competitor, Square, sells for $10 with a $10 credit.

Second, the payments company announced a partnership with MoneyGram, a global money-transfer service.

Through this partnership, PayPal users will be able to deposit cash and withdraw funds from MoneyGram's 280,000 brick-and-mortar locations worldwide. Using MoneyGram, underbanked consumers can load their PayPal account with cash and pay online using PayPal instead of with a prepaid card.

PayPal expects to piloted this service in the U.S. in early 2013, and roll it out gradually after that.

To learn more about PayPal, watch its FinovateEurope 2012 demo.