Google has taken the wraps off its long-awaited mobile wallet service, and named its first partners in the venture.
The company has teamed with wireless operator Sprint, financial services firm Citi, payment company MasterCard and transaction company First Data for live trials of Google Wallet.
Google said the NFC payment service for Android will be released first on the Nexus S 4G from Sprint.
It will initially support Citi MasterCards supporting MasterCard's PayPass contactless payment system, as well as a Google Prepaid Card that can be funded with most credit or debit cards.
Field tests are set to begin in the northern hemisphere's summer in New York and San Francisco, where Google said many retailers, vending machines and taxis already support PayPass.
The company will also work with companies including VeriFone, Hypercom, Ingenico and VIVOTech to develop a new point of sale system, SingleTap. Google named 17 retailers participating in the SingleTap program.
Google has also been testing promotions ranging from discounts on items discovered through its search adds, to coupons received when entering a store.
But the company is facing legal hurdles before it even launches the service. PayPal has filed a lawsuit accusing Google of misappropriating its trade secrets.
PayPal alleges that Osama Bedier - a former PayPal executive - stole confidential information about the payment company's mobile payment business when leaving to work at Google, Bloombergreported.
The suit states that Bedier is now leading Google's point of sale efforts, and claims that Bedier and Google also disclosed PayPal trade secrets to major retailers.
In other Google mobile news, the company earlier this week revealed that the company now gets 2.7 billion ad requests through its AdMob mobile advertising network per day.