CyberSource announced on Tuesday it was acquiring the BidPay service from First Data Corp. for $1.8 million (http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m03/i08/s00), but a spokesperson said the company has not yet determined whether it will remain a way for auction buyers to order money orders online. However, Bruce Frymire said that the company will re-launch BidPay in the coming months and that it will be a service geared to online-auction users. Frymire said CyberSource is looking at "the whole spectrum" of models.

Frymire could not comment on whether BidPay would be covered in eBay's Safe Payments Policy. eBay spokesperson Hani Durzy said it was "too soon to tell" if eBay would allow users to list BidPay as a payment option since eBay would need time to evaluate it against the Safe Payments policy criteria.

Despite the high failure rate of online payment services in years past, the space is heating up. Not counting credit cards, PayPal dominates the industry, but others are jumping in the ring. Google recently announced it is adding functionality to its online billing and payments service that will allow users to pay for online purchases (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m02/i27/s02).

And a company called Obopay announced Wednesday it has received $10 million in funding in a Series A round to market a comprehensive mobile payment service in the U.S. that allows subscribers to get, send and spend money directly from their mobile phones. But it will likely face competition from PayPal: on Monday, CNN reported that PayPal is preparing to launch a service that would let people pay for items by texting from their cell phones (http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/06/technology/business2_paypal0306).