Is This a Collect Call?

Once more, looks like someone's trying to put their chocolate in your peanut butter, only it just doesn't feel that right. There's a piece this morning in American Banker--which we only take because Lithuanian Lawyer folded, and this was the default replacement--about how cell phone and credit card companies are trying to make it so you can do your banking and pay for stuff using your cell. Look, is that entirely necessary?

MasterCard seems to think so. Says the subscription-only AmBank this morning, the credit card company "is testing a mobile payment service in Dallas that incorporates payment card functions in Nokia Corp. phones." Seems more people forget their wallets at home than their cell phones, which makes sense; who needs their driver's license, anyway? Guess there is some convenience to this technological advance, but after you see former Dallasite James Scurlock's wrenching in-debt documentary Maxed Out--which does for credit cards what Fast Food Nation and Super Size Me do for the fast-food industry--well, you might think twice about how awesome this is. (For nearly a dozen clips from the movie, which opens in February, go here.)

But, hey, nice to know MasterCard thinks enough of Dallas' spending habits to use us as guinea pigs. That's just one reason to give thanks at Thanksgiving. --Robert Wilonsky