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Three of the four national US cellcos are to combine their mobile wallets to boost m-payments and ensure they control the trend. Verizon Wireless, AT&T and T-Mobile USA have formally announced their joint venture, Isis, details of which were leaked earlier this year, say insiders.

The three carriers are working with financial institutions Barclays and Discover Financial Services and the venture will be lead by Michael Abbott, formerly CMO at General Electric's GE Capital division, who is seen as a neutral party with no bias towards a single cellco.

The carriers hope to use m-payments to make customers even more dependent on their cellphones and to create an additional revenue stream and brand awareness tactic. Discover will process transactions over its credit card network and Barclays will use the JV to push into the US consumer market.

However, Isis will have tough competition for users' m-payments habits. Sprint has its own m-wallet activities, while credit card giants Visa and Mastercard both have initiatives involving many carriers and other partners worldwide, such as Nokia. And the open web brigade will be seeking their own place in the sector, harnessing platforms like eBay's PayPal and possible new payments systems to be created by Apple and Google.

Canada's three largest mobile operators already have a similar collaboration and last year this launched a service letting users send money to and from handsets. However, rather like Sprint, the Canadian initiative aims to involve all the main banks and credit cards, making the phone a hub for all their mobile services.

The key technology underpinning mobile payments is NFC (Near Field Communications), which allows a handset to be swiped over a reader to pay for goods and services, taking the money from a bank account, card or micropayments account. This allows cellphones to be used at the point of sale, not just for online purchases or cash transfers, as now. Isis will work on building out an NFC-based network across the US by mid-2012, and the phonemakers are getting on board. After years when Nokia was the only enthusiast, aiming to incorporate NFC into all its new handsets next year, now Google has announced NFC support in Android 2.3, Apple recently hired an expert in the technology, and RIM is supporting it too.

Abbott said the ultimate goal is the development of a mobile wallet solution that effectively renders obsolete cash, credit and debit cards, loyalty cards, coupons, tickets and transport passes. However, in the early days he will need the support of the credit card - Barclaycard will be the first, offering multiple mobile payment products, but "moving forward, Isis will be available to all interested merchants, banks and mobile carriers," Abbott said in a statement.

The three operators serve more than 200m wireless subscribers across the US and so could pose a threat to the card processing of Visa and MasterCard.

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