Bank of America and Visa are set to start testing mobile contactless payments technology next month in New York, according to Reuters.
The pilot - running until the end of the year - will see New York-area staff and customers making low value purchases by tapping their handsets against specially equipped readers at the point of sale. Retailers involved in the tests include McDonald's and CVS, as well as taxis and some subway lines.
To turn their handsets into payment devices, trial participants will install chips from Visa "and its technology partners", says Reuters. The card giant formed a partnership with DeviceFidelity - provider of a microSD-based contactless system - in February.
Visa is also working with US Bancorp on a similar pilot that will begin in October, says Reuters.
Visa, MasterCard and banks are facing increasing competition in the payments market from telcos. Earlier this month it emerged that AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile have teamed up on a contactless m-payments venture in tandem with Discover and Barclays, with testing set to start in Atlanta and three other cities soon.
BofA and Visa to test cell phone payments - Reuters