Motorola and MasterCard are conducting field tests of new mobile phones that include Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips embedded in them as part of a cashless payment system dubbed PayPass. The phones will be equipped with Near Field Communication (NFC) systems, which will allow them to communicate with nearby readers to, for instance, pay for small purchases or tickets for transit or events simply by passing their phone close to a reader.
Once the phone and account has been identified by the RFID tag, the user's MasterCard account will be billed automatically by the network for the appropriate amount. MasterCard also sees potential for the phones as contactless readers, which it claims opens the door for "a variety of marketing and promotional applications", on which the company did not elaborate further.
The PayPass trials will be run by the end of the year at various locations in the United States.
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