AT&T and Verizon are said to be in trials with Discover to establish a new payment system using smart phones. As I see it, there are going to be three main players in this space: Cellular providers, credit card companies and banks. The first two we know – the last one may be a little bit of a surprise. However, what’s to stop Wells Fargo from putting an app on your smartphone to allow you to debit money from your account automatically? Also, businesses are doing limited trials with payments using smart phones (See Starbucks), but do you really want to have hundreds of private label apps cluttering your cellphone? No, there will be a winner from one of the three aforementioned groups. Who will it be? My money is on the credit card companies. They have the experience and deep pockets to handle fraud.