Three of the nation’s largest banks are racing into the growing battle over how consumers move money and make payments, launching a service Wednesday that lets people use their checking accounts to send each other money with an email address or cellphone number.

Three of the nation’s largest banks are launching a service Wednesday that lets people use their checking accounts to send each other money with an email address or cellphone number. Robin Sidel has details.

Banks are looking to hold onto their influence over consumers, who are increasingly shunning checks and cash, turning instead to new nonbank technologies to spend their money. The new service from Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. takes aim at the popular PayPal offering. At stake are billions of dollars in credit-card, overdraft and checking fees each year.

‘Customers want to move payments from paper to electronic methods, so if we can meet our customers’ financial needs, they will be better customers with us,’ said Mike Kennedy, who develops payment strategies at San Francisco-based Wells Fargo and is chairman of the new venture.

Google Inc. has its own designs on the payments business, hoping to facilitate payments as well […]