Bank to test payment by cellphone
NEW YORK — Bank of America Corp., the biggest US lender, will start testing a system next month that lets people pay New York-area merchants through mobile phones instead of swiping plastic credit or debit cards.
The service may be expanded if the test goes well, said Michael Upton, senior vice president of emerging capabilities at Bank of America. New York City taxis, Walgreen Co. drugstores, Home Depot Inc., and McDonald’s Corp. restaurants in the region can accept mobile payments, Upton said.
The goal is to “gain a better understanding about how customers perceive these types of services with new technologies that are changing people’s lives,’’ Upton said. Bank of America had 98.1 million payment cards outstanding in the United states at the end of last year, according to the Nilson Report, an industry newsletter, and counts 57 million relationships with consumers and small businesses.
Wireless carriers are seeking to enter the US payments market, dominated by Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc., the world’s biggest card networks. AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless, the two largest US mobile carriers, are leading a venture that may begin testing phone payments at stores in four cities by the middle of next year, people with knowledge of the plan have said.
Mobile payments are already in use in the United Kingdom, Japan, Turkey, and South Korea.
