Bank of America has become the first bank to offer a mobile phone application on Google's Android Market, which opened for business Wednesday with 50 apps available for download.
The first batch of Android apps have been developed in advance through special arrangements between Google and corporate development shops.
The Bank of America app is the first to appear in the finance section of the Android marketplace. It offers access to online banking over the phone screen and includes branch/ATM location capabilities.
Google says it will open up the market to freelancers and other corporates from Monday.
The first phone running Google's Android software, the G1, went on sale on Wednesday from T-Mobile in the US.
Card network Visa announced in September that it too is developing mobile payments software for handsets that run on Google's new phone operating system.
The first application will initially be offered to Chase Visa cardholders, with other US issuers set to follow.
Customers will be sent notifications about transactions to their handsets and receive promotional offers from merchants. The service will also use Android's in-built location-based technology to inform customers about nearby retailers where they can redeem the offers and locate ATMs.
Mobile Money Ventures (MMV) - the joint venture set up by Citi and South Korea's SK Telecom - has also announced plans to develop Android-compatible banking applications.
Apple, which kickstarted the movement for downloadable mobile software via its iPhone App Store, says that the site supported 200 million downloads in its first 100 days.