Isis, a joint venture for wireless credit-card payments made up of AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, has announced that Austin will be among the initial launch markets next year for its “wave and pay” program that lets consumers pay for goods and services with nothing but a phone, writes Kit Eaton for FastCompany. 

Merchants across the city will get new NFC-enabled processing machines from Verifone, and people with an ISIS-enabled mobile phone will be able to make simple wave-and-pay-style payments, as well as redeem offers and coupons. Isis’ platform brings together device manufacturers, carriers, payment networks, issuers, and merchants, and will support multiple banks as well as different phones on different networks.

In a related story, VentureBeat’s Regina Hope Sinsky reports that Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt is saying that within the next year you will be able to “Tap and Pay” with your mobile phone at a third of all retail store and restaurant checkout terminals in the United States.

Read more at FastCompany ^[1] and VentureBeat ^[2].