Google will announce a new mobile payments system, adding even more urgency to the all-out arms-race taking place in the point-of-sale digital money space. The announcement will include news of a partnership with mobile service provider Sprint to roll out a mobile-payments system based on Near Field Communication, or NFC, technology.

NFC-fans believe the technology will become the standard format for mobile payments. Google’s plan to begin testing its own mobile-payments system was reported months ago, and will install thousands of NFC units made by VeriFone Systems at merchant locations in New York and San Francisco.