No cash on hand to pay the babysitter? Owe your mom $10? Soon you'll be able to send payments directly to their Visa card. 
 
 Visa Inc. on Wednesday said it is creating a service to allow individuals to use their own Visa or a bank account to send money to a personal Visa debit, credit or prepaid card. Users also may bring cash to a participating bank to make a transfer. 
 
 Users also will be able to send money using a recipient's mobile phone number or e-mail address. In those cases, recipients will receive a message that someone is sending them money and then enter their own Visa account number to receive it. 
 
 Money transferred to debit and prepaid cards will be treated as deposits. Money sent to Visa credit cards will be treated as a payment. 
 
 Visa has partnered with two companies that provide technology to banks, Fiserv Inc. and CashEdge Inc. 
 
 Fiserv operates the ZashPay network, which already is used by about 500 banks and credit unions for person-to-person payments. Fiserv said Wednesday that working with Visa will greatly expand its service, which transfers payments in as short a period as one day. 
 
 About 200 banks, including several of the nation's largest, already use CashEdge's PopMoney service. 
 
 The increasingly competitive field of person-to-person payments includes eBay's PayPal and a handful of other companies. One advantage Visa will have in the market is that there are about 1.85 billion Visa cards in circulation worldwide. 
 
 Kelly Alpert of Visa's digital money transfer unit said it's expected that banks will start taking part in the service at mid-year. Any fees related to sending money will be determined by the banks, she said. 
 
 It will build on Visa's international money transfer business. The company already handles international remittances and person-to-person payments in conjunction with MoneyGram International and Bancomer Transfer Services Inc. 
 
 Visa shares added 23 cents to $71.45 in midday trading. 
 
 EBay shares fell 38 cents to $30.06. 
 
 Fiserv shares fell 14 cents to $58.41. 

 Visa is launching a new service that will let people send each other money from their Visa or bank account to each other's Visa debit, credit or prepaid card, as we noted yesterday. But while this will open up new vistas of convenience, and offer a way for people who are sick of scammers exploiting Paypal's refund system to conduct transactions, I would at the same time expect to see new kinds of advance fee fraud using the service. 
 
 Basically take all the scams that we already see and just swap out Visa pay by credit card instead of Western Union and checks. Someone offers to buy your laptop on eBay and then sends you extra money so that you can mail it through their "shipping agent" and gives you a little extra to keep for your trouble. They want you to send the money by Visa pay by credit card, then a few days later the money in your account bounces. Oopsies. 
 
 However, unlike Western Union, presumably the Visa cards will be attached to an actual identity. While that still can be faked or stolen, that's harder to fake than a Western Union pickup where all they need is the right number and the money can be picked up anywhere in the world by whomever, without chance for refund or canceled Payment. 
 
 Technology, ever the double-edged sword! 
 
 Visa lets people use plastic to pay one another [Businessweek] 
 
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 Does Visa Have The PayPal-Killing Card In Its Wallet? 
 
 From ConsumerReports.org:
– Visa will soon allow customers to use their credit and debit cards to send money to other individuals, reports AP. It's the same type of service offered by the likes of PayPal, but Visa will come into the market with the advantage of 1.85 billion cards in circulation. One example of how it would work: A person initiates the transfer using the recipient's cell number or e-mail address; the recipient gets a notification message and enters his own Visa account number to finalize the transaction. But while users will find a lot of uses for the new service, so will scammers, warns the Consumerist. Click for that.