As reported by NearfieldCommunicationsWorld.com, Google is hiring a technical account manager for mobile commerce. According to the job posting on Google’s site, candidates must have hands-on experience with NFC/RFID technologies as well as knowledge of point-of-sale readers and payment processing. 

The posting seems to confirm what has been suspected for several months, namely that Google will soon be entering the mobile payments field with a technology of their own. In November, Google CEO Eric Schmidt demonstrated NFC-chip capabilities supported by the next generation of Google’s open-source Android mobile operating system. This was preceded by Google’s quiet purchase in August of Zetawire, a "stealth start-up" working on mobile payments.

When a payment product will be rolled out is still open for speculation, but this seems to take Google’s entry into mobile payments out of the realm of conjecture.