The mobile payment race…who will be the first?

Google

Google News

Google, along with several banks and other companies, may have beat group venture Isis to the mobile payment punch. Google, MasterCard, Sprint, Citigroup and transaction processor First Data will introduce the mobile payment service this summer in New York and San Francisco.

Google has all ready gotten retailers Macy’s Inc, American Eagle Outfitters Inc, and Subway to join in with them and offer customers loyalty programs and discount offers. Google’s payment service will utilize MasterCard’s PayPass technology. The app is downloadable for Android phones.

If Google and company can get the service launched this summer, they will indeed beat the trio that is called Isis. The rival Isis, made up of Verizon, T-Mobile USA and AT&T announced the launch of their mobile payment service by early next year.

Visa has also been in the works with the likes of Bank of America Corp and Wells Fargo & Co. to provide a pay by phone system they will make available commercially, by later this year. Visa has been testing their mobile payment system for some time as well.

Google says they will offer the Wallet app to other carriers, including the Isis group, as well as BlackBerry and Apple. According to the Chief Executive of NXP there should be about 20 phones with NFC technology available in the U.S. by the end of this year.

NXP is the provider of the NFC technology that Google’s Wallet app will use. NXP co-founded the NFC forum in 2004 to help introduce NFC technology; additionally, NXP has provided hardware and software for more than 150 field trials.

Google plans to sell a prepaid virtual card similar to PayPal’s online payment service. Although most U.S. merchants are still unable to take mobile payments; some of the merchants aren’t willing to accept the new technology yet. As an incentive to these merchants, Google and its retail partners will offer virtual coupons, stepping into Groupon and Living Social’s territory.

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