Google have launched its Google Wallet in the US after a successful trial which took place in New York and San Francisco since May.

Google Wallet is essentially an NFC application which enables you to pay for items using your Google Nexus S. Infact, currently the service is only available on the Nexus S on Sprint in the US and owners can download the application right now from the Android Market.

In order to use your Nexus S to pay for items you'll need to have either a Citi Mastercard or to create a Google Pre-Paid account. You can then use the phone to pay for a New York Taxi, McDonalds and much more.

As well as being able to pay for items Google Wallet can be used to redeem vouchers and as a replacement for a loyalty card, which is a great idea. All functions on Google Wallet take advantage of "Single Tap" which enables you to pay for items or redeem vouchers with one tap on the reader.

Google Wallet, which takes advantage of NFC chip technology, is expected to come to Europe sometime in 2012. It'll be boosted by the announcement that Google have now partnered with Visa who have a vast amount of customers across Europe.

Google will be hoping that their NFC offering becomes the dominant force and we wouldn't bet against it. We'll keep you posted about all developments in regards to both NFC and Google Wallet.