BARCELONA, Spain - In the second half of 2011, Visa will begin rolling out a service that turns smartphones into electronic wallets, CNET reports. Visa will use Near Field Communication (NFC) short-range wireless technology to convert smartphones into payment devices.

The technology incorporates real-time anti-fraud alerts and other consumer protection systems, said Bill Gajda, global head of Visa Mobile. Visa demonstrated its PayWave system at last week€™s Mobile World Congress 2011.

Despite improvements in technology, e-wallets have yet to catch on with retailers, mobile handset manufacturers and consumers. Visa will provide a way that current smartphones could be converted to e-wallets via inserting a microSD removable memory card into the secure digital slots on phone backs or in a special plastic skin for the iPhone. The memory card keys into Visa€™s PayWave downloadable application.

"People don't want to wait two years for NFC-enabled phones to come out or to switch phones," to get one with an NFC chip sooner, Gajda said. "You can make payments today on the iPhone 4."

Bank of America, Chase, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo are testing their own phone-payment technology. Other companies exploring NFC chip technology include Nokia, Sprint and Apple. Starbucks announced last month that it would start accepting mobile payments from Apple iOS and BlackBerry users.