Anyone else out there remember iPhone marketing exec Bob Borchers? Well, he’s left Apple now and has just jumped aboard the mobile payments bandwagon.Pretty clear we’re looking at some fast-paced developments in mobile payments, iPhones and more, as Visa and Mastercard face renewed competition. Borchers will join the board of Payfone following the NewYork firm’s $11 million investment round. Borchers, now at Opius Capital, is to join the board, along with RIM’s Kevin Talbot. What Borchers brings is wide experiene within Apple’s iPhone team, and experience setting up the iPod-auto-integration ecosystem. Payfone works with carriers to provide a mobile payment system that lets you buy something by giving a merchant your phone number, and having the transaction billed to your phone account. This is interesting, but constitutes a crowded market, with AT&T and Verizon planning a venture to replace credit and debit cards with smartphones, taking on Visa and MasterCard. http://abcnews.go.com/assets/player/walt2.6/flash/SFP_Walt.swf (Yeah, that’s Seth at 1:10) Meanwhile Apple’s iPhone also has potential as an iWallet, some reports claim.
