Westpac, one of Australia's largest banks, will launch a service enabling its customers to make NFC purchases with mobile devices in the New Year.

Westpac said it will work with Visa on the rollout of the NFC point-of-sale payment service. Customers with NFC-compatible Android-based mobile devices will be able to use all their Westpac credit and debit cards through the bank's mobile banking app, according to the bank.

Westpac will support all mobile device manufacturers as part of its NFC rollout.

The announcement follows the completion of an internal NFC trial by Westpac employees.

"Westpac has trialled the use of stickers for mobile payments, but has decided not to roll them out to customers," David Lindberg, chief product officer, Australian Financial Services, Westpac, said in a statement. "Contactless payments have been the single most important payments trend in 2013, now accounting for over 50 percent of Australian debit transactions. Westpac's move marks the next big step — taking contactless to the phone."

Vipin Kalra, country manager for Visa Australia, said Australia is leading the world in its adoption of contactless payments. "And mobile is the next step ... One in every three Australian Visa transactions is now a contactless Visa payWave transaction."

According to Westpac, Australia has seen significant volumes of contactless shopping, fast food and fuel debit card payments.

Learn more about contactless/NFC.