Financial institutions, however, are beginning to show more interest in mobile payments. Last month, Bank of America Corp. announced it is collaborating with Visa Inc. and DeviceFidelity Inc. on a mobile-payment trial involving microSD chip technology integrated with a mobile payment application ( see story ). Gillen believes financial institutions' anxiety over losing out on any mobile payments-related revenue is driving them to get more involved. "There is a fear among banks that someone else is going to step up and get involved [in mobile payments], and that's why you are seeing banks getting involved now," he says. In the United States, Apple Inc. is becoming a threat to those companies investing in NFC development and trials. Apple never has stated publicly its intentions to enter the mobile-payments space, but observers believe an NFC-enabled iPhone is imminent based on several of its recent actions.