Google will announce a new mobile payments service on Thursday, Bloomberg reports. The new service utilizes Near Field Communications (NFC) and so will be only be available on those Android phones that have that technology – namely, the Nexus S from Sprint.
By utilizing NFC, this new mobile payments service will mean that consumers will be able to pay for goods and redeem handsets via specially equipped NFC cash registers. According to Bloomberg, the service will get a trial run in five cities – New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington DC.
Bloomberg says that Google is using hardware and software from VeriFone Systems and ViVOtech in order to run the service, but we might see some other companies involved too, including perhaps Mastercard which has been on the forefront of both NFC and mobile payments.
There have been a number of rumors and reports circulating lately about Google’s plans for NFC and mobile payments, particularly as its Gingerbread Android OS added support for NFC and as Google incorporated the technology into a number of its local services, such as Hotpot.
Google refused to comment on this latest story, but has sent out invitations to a press event scheduled that day.
You can read more about NFC technology and the future of mobile payments in a series of recent stories by ReadWriteWeb’s Sarah Perez.
