By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist

I don't usually drive from Brookline out to Framingham just to gas up, but I found myself pulling into a Cumberland Farms outlet on Cochituate Road a few weeks ago, to try paying for a tank of fuel without using cash or a credit card. About fifty Cumberand Farms locations in eastern Massachusetts are participating in a pilot test of a just-released mobile app called SmartPay, available for iPhone and Android, and they're offering a five cents a gallon discount if you use it. It was the perfect lure for a tech-obsessed cheapskate like me: trying out a new app for mobile payment, and saving money at the same time.

The app was developed by Cumberland Farms in collaboration with the Boston office of PayPal. (Last April, PayPal acquired Fig Card, a small Boston startup that was developing mobile payment technology.) It requires that you have an account with PayPal, the online payment service that is owned by eBay. In addition to the iPhone and Android versions, there's also a mobile web version for other phones.

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