San Francisco-based mFoundry recently announced it received Celent's XCelent Award for Advanced Technology 2010 in the research firm's latest Mobile Retail Banking Vendor Report.

MFoundry was among 14 companies selected for review by Celent analysts for their latest Mobile Banking Vendor Survey. As part of the evaluation process, Celent looked for the live availability of more than 100 feature functionalities. The report helps financial institutions make sense of the mobile banking vendor landscape by providing a glance at the relative positions of each vendor across four dimensions: Advanced Technology, Breadth of Functionality, Customer Base and Depth of Client Services.

"MFoundry is the only vendor that has a live contactless payment program implemented in North America. As many banks are looking ahead to the day when mobile phones will be used in conjunction with promotions and contactless payments, Celent felt that mFoundry's capabilities and its success with Starbucks were significant," said Red Gillen, senior analyst at Celent.

Of the 14 companies profiled in the report, mFoundry exhibited the largest year-over-year growth in new client signings, with a more than 300 percent increase from 2009. MFoundry reported it provides mobile banking technology to FIS Global, First Data Corporation, NCR, the CO-OP Financial Services, and PSCU Financial Services. Its product is used by more than 200 banks and credit unions in the USA.