Consulting giant Accenture has opened a new facility at its research and development technology lab dedicated to the rapidly growing mobile payments industry.

The facility, called the Accenture Payments Innovation Showcase, focuses on original research and development in mobile communications and other point-of-sale technology, bank-to-corporate connectivity, processing, process models, biometrics, security and regulation such as the Single Euro Payments Area initiative. Accenture's goal is to demonstrate how businesses can drive innovation, reduce costs and improve the quality of mobile products and services for customers by using cutting-edge technology.

"We will identify emerging mobile payments technologies that will create value for Accenture and its clients, financial institutions, telecom providers and wireless companies," said Michael Redding, director of development for Accenture Technology Labs, Chicago.

"We think we will make a significant impact at the intersection of banking and telecom by matching the next generation of high-performance institutions with emerging mobile banking and payments technologies," he said.

Accenture is running a pilot program called Touch&Travel for the German national rail company Deutsche Bahn and carrier partner Vodafone Germany to let consumers make payments with near-field-communication-enabled mobile phones.

Another key aspect of the program is issuing paperless tickets for train, subway tram and bus fare with radio frequency ID-enabled signs or handheld devices operated by Deutsche Bahn employees.

Over the next two years, Touchpoints terminals that are compatible with NFC- and RFID-enabled handsets will be installed at public transportation stations throughout Germany.

MasterCard and Visa have employed such technology for contactless payments, a feature currently available in taxi cabs in New York, letting consumers tap or wave their card instead of swiping.

Other companies that have tested or actually deployed the technology for inventory management or point-of-sale payments include McDonald's, Wal-Mart, Verizon, Nokia and the Chicago Transit Authority.

Speedpass uses similar technology - a RFID tag that hangs on consumers' keychains and lets them connect to a bank account or a credit card to make contactless payments at the pump. A NASCAR sponsor, Speedpass had more than 6 million users in the United States by 2006.

Accenture has also launched an SMS payments platform for British company Telrock that ties into its mobile banking and payments platform. It is a peer-to-peer system, where consumers can text payments to a merchant such as a restaurant or retailer.

Accenture also envisions banks setting up a similar kind of a service.

"There will be an adoption curve, but it's a service that's entirely possible," Mr. Redding said. "Initially this would target youth especially."

Every year, 150 leading global organizations attend technology workshops hosted by Accenture at its four technology Labs in Sophia Antipolis, France; San Jose, CA, and Chicago in the United States; and Bangalore, India.

The Payments Innovation Showcase will tap into this program, hosting payments executives for one- and two-day applied-technology programs that immerse participants in the payments business and current technology. It will also foster discussion of how their businesses and customers can benefit.

"We see mobile payments as a hot space, though a complicated one," Mr. Redding said. "There's been a lot of change and we're seeing a lot of opportunity for mobile payments 2.0 trends that have built on the successes and failures of the past."

The Showcase currently includes industry prototypes that draw on a number of new and emerging technologies including mobile payments provisioning, Accenture Near Field Communications Wallet to enable mobile payments with ATMs, biometric identification, point-of-sale scenarios and mobile banking, including in-branch applications.

Also included are the Accenture High Performance Bank Business Process tool, which can be used to design the most appropriate and efficient processes for specific tasks, and the SAP Payment Engine, a high-scaling payment processing solution for banks, shared-service centers and automated clearinghouses.

"With the new generation of mobile devices, the smartphone, BlackBerry, iPhone, gPhone, technology fillers are driving mobile payments," Mr. Redding said. "Once contactless chips are installed in most phones, this model will grow rapidly."

Nokia will have 15 different handsets equipped with NFC and RFID technology by the end of the year. Other major handset manufacturers are expected to follow suit.

"The ubiquity of the platform is a key part of mobile payments and data services," Mr. Redding said. "There are tens of millions of handsets all with data capabilities and soon almost every consumer is going to have a data plan, which are critical building blocks to opening the door to mobile payments on a large scale.

"Eventually, this technology will allow the mobile phones to replace consumers' metro card, their credit cards and even their physical wallet," he said. "Cash is king, and if you can replace cash, then you'll get sales volume, and volume means profits."

Accenture Labs has developed 27 different payments scenarios, from NFC, GRSM and peer-to-peer SMS payments to digital coupons and automated point-of-sale readers.

"Accenture can help set up a pilot for retailers, merchants, banks, handset manufacturers and carriers," Mr. Redding said. "They can set up a use case, see if customers like it and it if works, companies will get a competitive advantage."