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I know the guys that make it, and they're solid. Check it out: http://venmo.com

It has been done before, but it hasn't caught on yet in the US. I'm not sure why. It does fine elsewhere - but the configuration is usually through the carrier.

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I'm not sure why.

This isn't US-specific, but according to the PayPal interview in Founders at Work, the problem is fraud.

Well, I would trust a notification of a text message than a submission of a form from a potentially phished account. Then the issue is stolen cards, and ramp-up of merchants and payers is a good way to limit risk.

I think this is a user issue. People don't currently pay with there phones. There are a bunch of options for it.

Stolen cards is a huge issue. I actually think being a smaller "Penn students and surrounding businesses" type of play would make it easier...there's less incentive for the online-only stolen card gangs to take over.

Even PayPal has PayPal Mobile: http://www.crunchbase.com/product/paypal-mobile

Venmo has been getting quite a bit of buzz lately in my circles so I'm sure they're on PayPal's radar.

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