| U.S. shoppers soon will be able to use mobile phones to pay for things at the checkout counter under a system unveiled by Google Inc and other major companies. Google, MasterCard, Citigroup, Sprint and transaction processing company First Data will make the service available this summer in New York and San Francisco, Google said on Thursday. The service, which competes with plans by Visa and other top U.S. banks and mobile phone companies, is similar to how people shop in Asia, where some customers already routinely wield smartphones like credit cards. BEATING ISIS TO THE PUNCH Some large U.S. companies have raced to make the technology a reality since last year. Citigroup MasterCard holders with PayPass-enabled cards will get first crack at Google's service. The Internet giant also plans to sell a virtual prepaid card similar to PayPal's online payment service. If the service is launched this summer as expected, it would beat rival Isis. The venture between Verizon Wireless, AT&T and T-Mobile USA has said its service would be launched early next year. Google plans to open the Wallet app to other carriers including Isis. Richard Clemmer, Chief Executive of NXP, Google's mobile wallet chip partner, expects that there will be at least 20 phone models on the market with NFC chips by the end of this year. The number could be as high as 40 around the world. Visa Inc has also tested a pay-by-phone system with several large banks, including Bank of America Corp and Wells Fargo & Co. The world's largest credit and debit card processing network has said it plans to make its mobile payments system commercially available this year. For Citigroup, which has a large international operation, the new mobile payments system will help it expand into online and digital banking. The third-largest U.S. bank by assets is trying to gain more business by offering new features for its wealthy, urban, tech-savvy customers. "You're going to see us be very focused on this area over the coming decade," said Paul Galant, Citigroup's head of global enterprise payments. |