AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Discover and Barclays to officially announce mobile payment joint venture plans

Confirmation that AT&T, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA have formed a joint venture to introduce NFC-based mobile payments services in the US could come as early as tomorrow, according to a Reuters report.

Discover Financial Services and the US arm of UK bank Barclays will announce their participation in the joint venture at the same time, the report continues.

The announcement is expected to include details of who the partners have appointed as the chief executive of the new venture. So far, however, “representatives for the five companies involved in the venture declined to comment,” Reuters says.

Details of the US mobile network operators’ plans were first reported by Bloomberg in August this year. Discover, the US’ fourth largest payments network, ran an extensive mobile payments test using contactless stickers in 2009 and is expected to be responsible for handling the joint venture’s payments processing requirements. Barclays, which has partnered with Orange for a planned commercial launch of NFC payments in the UK, is expected to be responsible for providing the joint venture’s financial services requirements.

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