Near Field Communication (NFC) mobile payments have just taken a substantial step forward with PayPal adopting the technology.eBay-owned PayPal, one of the largest eCommerce/ePayment companies in the world, has announced an NFC-enabled widget for the Android operating system that will let users exchange money through the service.

“We’ve been looking at NFC technology for a while and we saw a tremendous opportunity to combine the best of NFC and the best of PayPal,” said PayPal Mobile’s senior director, Laura Chambers in her official blog posting.

With the PayPal widget, one would tap their phone on another’s, requesting an amount to be confirmed by the payer. A PIN number is entered, and the transaction is complete.

The company has released a demo video of the system in action on Samsung Nexus S phones, and the system is yet to be released for public consumption.

For these kinds of payments to work, the mobile has to be fitted with an NFC chip. There are few phones in Australia that are currently NFC-enabled, though more are scheduled to hit Australian shores over the next year.