The No. 1 U.S. Mobile operator, Cingular Wireless, announced that it is talking to several banks about enabling its customers to manage their money, by means of the cell phone, as a part of a push to expand phone use beyond talking.

AT&T Inc and BellSouth Corp. are testing a wireless banking application that would let customers view account balances, transfer founds or even pay bills directly from their cell phones. "We hope a lot of banks participate," Mark Siegel, spokesman for Cingular said, "The early signs are very encouraging." Cingular hopes to launch the application commercially in early 2007, and does not plan to charge a separate fee for this service. The company hopes this service will encourage customers to sign up for data service subscriptions and attract new subscribers.

Customers will be able to use this feature by simply downloading the application, that Cingular is currently testing, onto their mobile phone. Other data services being developed include music and video downloads for phones.