Google’s NFC mobile payment system to be unveiled Thursday?

Google is preparing an experiment with their mobile payment service using the NFC technology, with it being possible the system will be officially unveiled Thursday.

Google has been preparing a non-contact mobile payment service for months now using NFC (Near Field Communications) which they are hoping to test in the United States on their Android platform. Non-contact options have been integrated into the operating system since Android Gingerbread.

Over the last few months, the companies VeriFone and Ingenico have participated in the preparation of a pilot with compatible Smartphone’s and the corresponding payment terminals to be installed at retailers.

And it seems that Google may now be at the point of making this new service official on Thursday in collaboration with MasterCard and Citygroup, with the help of the Nexus S handset (which comes with an NFC module) distributed by carrier Sprint Nextel.


The NFC technology promised for take-off in 2011
New York could be the location for this experiment, with it also possibly spreading to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington. Google is also wishing to receive rapid feedback about this initiative as other projects guided by the carriers are also being developed (notably ISIS, which has recently scaled back their ambitions) and Visa (who participated in the Citizy experiment in Nice, France).

The NFC mobile payment system will allow consumers to purchase goods thanks to the NFC module integrated into the mobile phone rather than having to use a credit card. The purchase is made by simply placing the Smartphone in proximity of (a few centimetres) the payment terminal present in shops.

And Google seems to be betting big on the NFC technology, with the CEO of NXP Semiconductor – the company who provides the NFC solution of reference used in Android Gingerbread recently stating that they anticipate between 40 and 100 million NFC handsets to ship in 2011.