Just yesterday, we highlighted all of the things that your Android phone can replace . Next year, we may be able to add “Wallet” to that list. Bank of America and Visa are testing contact-less payments delivered through mobile phones. Rather than swipe a debit or credit card, customers could wave their phone above a sensor and the money would be transferred electronically. The technology would be implemented via a small radio chip that sends a signal to the receiver over a very short distance, just in case you were worried about hackers jacking signals. Our Japanese readers may be a little confused by this “news” because you’ve been doing this for quite some time. We westerners are behind the curve as always. Near-field communications is still developing for Europe and North America but it is starting to attract some major names. Visa is also running a test program with US Bancorp in October and has run pilot programs with other banks. Earlier this month, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Discover Financial were rumored to be collectively working on a mobile payment solution . Aside from making payments, you can get rid of your loyalty cards and that George Constanza-sized wallet giving you back problems. Verizon has invested $400,000 in CardStar, a cross-platform app that stores customer reward and membership account info that can be scanned from the phone. We covered CardStar a short time ago , and think it would make perfect sense for a mobile phone payment system to have storage for the other cards we use when purchasing. Now if they can just figure out a way to store my driver’s license information, I’ll have no reason to carry a wallet at all. via [ Reuters and WSJ ]
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New mobile phone payment system may replace your wallet
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