Last month Juniper Research said the number of mobile phone users making payments for digital goods was expected to reach 2.5 billion worldwide by 2015, a 40% increase from this year's forecast of 1.8 billion.

It's now published a new study that looks at all mobile money transactions. The company says the total value of mobile payments for digital and physical goods, money transfers and NFC transactions will reach $670 billion by 2015.

Visa Inc announced yesterday that it's acquiring Fundamo, a South African company that provides mobile financial services platforms for network operators and financial institutions.

In addition, Visa announced a new, five-year commercial agreement with UK-based mobile money service Monitise plc.

In this week's edition of The Fonecast we're talking about the UK's first 4G broadband trial, Google's mobile payment scheme, Symbian's plans, Ofcom's dongle research and some cheering customer satisfaction figures.

Click here to hear this week's show on our website - or download the podcast automatically from iTunes.

Mark Bridge writes:

It’s often said that timing is everything. Or is it size?  I’m never sure.

Both came into play this week as online giant Google announced the forthcoming launch of its much-rumoured mobile payment service. Expect Google Wallet to arrive on the Nexus S 4G in the USA this summer.

The latest comScore MobiLens research shows that 20 million mobile phone users across the UK, France, Spain, Germany and Italy accessed their bank accounts via their mobiles in March.

Overall, that's 8.5% of mobile phone users. In addition, 5.1% accessed credit cards and 5.2% accessed electronic payments via their mobile devices.