Now the growing penetration of smart phones, the widespread use of phones to comparison shop, share price or product features or accept discount and coupon offers makes mobile payments the next high demand phone function. The contenders will be banks and credit card co-ops (Visa & MasterCard), Online Merchants (Amazon, eBay and Google), Telecommunications carriers like Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and handset builders (Nokia, Motorola). Long rumored and heavily used in Asia, mobile phones have the ability to be used as payment devices similar to credit cards.