Google is gearing up to turn select Android based Sprint phones into mobile wallets. This Thursday Google's plans for a mobile payment scheme will be finally revealed.

The mobile payments systems will operate on specific Android- based Sprint phones. Google will initially launch the service in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, D.C.

Wall Street Journal earlier reported back in March that Google was partnering with MasterCard and Citigroup to use Android smartphones to pay for purchases.

The service will allow users to pay for their purchases with a single swipe of their smartphones at a specialized reader at checkout counters. Near field communications, NFC for short, technology transfers information wirelessly from one device to another.

NFC chips are only available in two phones in the United States: the Google Nexus S and the Nokia C7. Analysts are predicting as many as 50 million NFC equipped phones will enter the market in 2011.

Mobile wallet services have garnered more demand in recent times. Total mobile transactions are expected to reach $245 billion in 2014. Google's interest in the system is in using the information gathered via the mobile wallet service and utilizing it to sell targeted ads.

Google isn't the first company to think of using NFC for its own corporate goals. Companies in the wireless sector want a piece of the emerging business. Smartphone manufacturers want to provide phones for the masses who will want to use NFC for mobile payments. AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon have formed a joint venture payment system to be released this fall.

Microsoft is planning to use NFC in its Windows Phone 7. Apple has something planned. Samsung and Visa are thinking of ways to use NFC technology in the Olympics next year.