By Koh Hui Theng

IMAGINE paying for your books and cup of coffee with your mobile phone.

Next month, 300 specially selected credit-card owners will be able to do so when Citibank and Visa launch a three-month pilot project to allow them to use their mobile phones as credit cards.

All the owners need to do to pay for their purchases is to place their Nokia 6212 phone - sponsored by telco M1 - against a card reader and the amount will be added to their creditcard bills.

Each phone comes with an embedded chip that contains details about the owner and his credit card. Over 400 merchants, including Popular bookstore outlets, the coffee connoisseur cafes and Gramophone music stores are involved.

Civil servant Lee Seong Per, 30, said: "Using my phone as a credit card will definitely make life more convenient, provided the security features are in place."

Citibank vice-president and business director of credit-payment products John Denhof said the pilot would help it understand "what type of products customers like".

Calling this a "quick and convenient way of paying for purchases", electronic-payment network Visa's regional head of mobile payment, Mr Gordon Cooper, said: "We'll look at what customers like before deciding whether to roll this service out to more people in the future."

Those who make at least eight transactions a month get to keep the $300 handset when the trial ends.

They can use the phone for as many transactions as they like every day, but each transaction is capped at $100.

There are no extra charges for the service, but customers' existing credit limits still apply. A passcode also prevents abuse.

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