The pilot project involves up to 1000 participants with Discover Card accounts and multiple merchants in the Chicago and Salt Lake City areas. Participants will be able to check their card account balances, review payment history, and make purchases using Motorola M-Wallet software embedded in their handsets.

Joby Orlowsky, vice president of marketing for Discover Network, says: "Not only will this pilot give us feedback on the technology, but also it will provide valuable information about how merchants and cardmembers interface with it.”

The hosted Motorola M-Wallet is device-agnostic software that enables financial transactions via NFC mobile phones in CDMA and GSM technologies. The 'virtual wallet' interface is capable of accommodating a variety of functions, such as bill payments, mobile banking, couponing, person-to-person transactions, stored value cards, ticketing, and point of sale transactions.

Navin Mehta, vice president, services, Motorola Networks & Enterprise, states: "The Motorola M-Wallet solution creates value for financial institutions and retailers by streamlining electronic transactions and optimising the customer management processes.”

Contactless payment technology is gaining ground with US merchants and customers. According to a recent merchant study by the Aberdeen Group, more than 58 percent of retail respondents indicated that they plan to implement contactless payment services at the check-out within the next 18-24 months.