Dunkin' Brands (DNKN) is launching an app that lets customers pay with phones using their Dunkin' Donuts cards.

You can also use the app to send a virtual Dunkin' gift card to your friends through email, text or Facebook. And if you really want to look -- but why would you? -- the app has nutritional information about the menu items.

"I think this is going to get a lot of play," Nigel Travis, the CEO of Dunkin' Brands, tells CNBC in the following interview.

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In order to pay by phone, customers need to load money onto a Dunkin' Donuts card, even if it's just a virtual card purchased online. When ordering, customers open the app on their phone and show the card information to the cashier for scanning.

Rival Starbucks (SBUX) has allowed mobile payments for quite some time and processes a million mobile transactions a week, The New York Times reports. Last week, Starbucks announced a partnership with Square, a startup focused in this area. Eventually, the newspaper reports, you'll be able to order at Starbucks just by telling the cashier your name and your credit card will be charged.

Dunkin' Brands hopes to open more than 600 stores globally this year, Travis says in the interview. The company has done well in the economic downturn, and over the past year its shares saw a strong climb from $25 to top $36 in June. Shares have settled back down since then and were trading Thursday up less than 1% to $30.98.

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