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NFC Times Exclusive Insight – LAS VEGAS, Nev.: In a surprise move, JPMorgan Chase, the largest U.S. credit and debit card issuer by payment volume, announced plans to launch its own wallet app–along with a low-cost mobile-payments service accepted by Wal-Mart Stores and other big U.S. merchants in the MCX merchant consortium.

New features announced by Google today for its wallet do not support NFC, but the search giant made it clear it continues to support the technology for in-store payments.

Google’s vice president of wallet and payments has left the company, following a difficult tenure for the former PayPal executive, who had tried to establish the Google Wallet for physical world payments and offers.

The 10-year anniversary of the official birth of NFC came and went quietly on Sept. 5, 2012.

As Google readies the launch of the next version of its wallet, expected to feature the addition of a physical payment card, other mobile-commerce players, including Google Wallet partner Sprint, are gearing up with their own offers.

PayPal has an advantage over another big Internet player, Google, in rolling out payments at the physical point of sale because it already has tens of millions of payments customers on file with billions in their accounts “ready to spend,” contends Don Kingsborough, PayPal’s vice president for retail and prepaid products.

Gemalto CEO Olivier Piou predicted the France-based vendor would begin to see substantial recurring revenue from its trusted service management business starting in 2014 as mobile payment starts to roll out globally over the next three to five years.

UPDATE: LAS VEGAS, Nev. – Google plans to announce a new version of its Google Wallet by mid-November, which would include a greater role for offers and expansion of the platform to other devices, including a possible app for the iPhone, NFC Times has learned. END UPDATE.

Google is expected to make a major announcement next week related to its Google Wallet, NFC Times has learned.

Google has put an unlocked version of its Galaxy Nexus Android phone on sale for GSM networks in the United States, which would open up the Google Wallet to customers of AT&T and T-Mobile.