Vote of Confidence

"Think back two or three years ago — the thought of paying with your mobile device to read The Wall Street Journal on your device was very foreign and no one would do it," he says. "But now it's very common to do this."

The idea of donating via text really took off when payvia's parent, m-Qube, processed more than $40 million in text donations for the Haiti earthquake relief fund on behalf of the Red Cross and other charitable organizations, Wedd says. m-Qube launched the ability for mobile users to pay or donate via text in 2004, and since then, the company has paid out just more than $2 billion to merchants and other clients.