Reuters' Sinead Carew reports today that Visa USA chief executive John Philip Coghlan says the credit card company "sees cell phones as the best way to expand electronic payments."

"Wireless transactions are common in some countries, such as Japan, where shoppers with mobile phones can pay with a wave of a handset instead of a swipe with a credit card, but the market is in its infancy in the United States," Carew writes. "U.S. mobile service providers see mobile payments as a way to increase customer loyalty while payment companies such as Visa view phones as the key to winning over American consumers, who use cash and checks for 46 percent of their spending."

"I think the mobile device is simply the most promising new form of payment system available today," Coghlan said during his keynote speech at CTIA Wireless 2007. Coghlan cited a company survey that found that 57 percent of U.S. consumers want to use cell phones for purchases, and 64 percent would consider leaving a wireless provider that didn't offer mobile payments.

More here from SlashPhone ... more here from ZDNet ... more here from Wireless Week ... and Visa's press release is here.