Google Wallet – The virtual credit card revolution!
Posted on October 24, 2011
Tags: Google Wallet, location-based services, mobile payment system, mobile payment technology, mobile phone, mode of payment, money, Near field communication, nfc, pay by tapping, PayPass terminals, PayWave, smart phones, tap and pay
The traditional methods of barter was replaced by money in the earlier days and replaced again by debit and credit card payments till recently. As technology goes through many phases parallel to innovation, the new age swipe system has yet been given a boost and touched by the smart phones revolution. Traditionally a mobile phone was used for communication on the move, which upgraded to entertainment on the move and now has moved ahead to even replace your old wallet.
Google Wallet, a few days after launch has become the new buzz term in the digital world. Google Wallet is a mobile payment technology that can be installed in a mobile phone as an application and be used as a mode of payment. This app uses near field communication (NFC) and location-based services (LBS) to enable mobile owners to pay for goods and services using their smartphone. The mantra of this application is nothing but “tap and pay”- which means one needs to simply place the phone on the reader provided at the POP, give a gentle tap on it to make payments through their payment processor. Currently Google Wallet is tied up with Citi MasterCard who has partnered the launch and is available on all Sprint Nexus S 4G phones. Sprint is currently one of the best mobile service providers in the USA. Visa, Discover and American Express have made available their NFC specifications that could enable their cards to be added to future versions of Google Wallet. MasterCard currently boasts 120,000 PayPass terminals in the US that are compatible with Google Wallet and more than 300,000 such payment points worldwide. Visa has given Google a global license for its PayWave system, which has a similar reach to PayPass. Discover Financial Services and American Express, are also making their NFC specifications available that could enable their cards to be added to Google Wallet. Both are due to come on board soon.
People with a smart phone need to load their payment processor into the Wallet application on the phone, and pay by tapping the phone to wireless-capable payment terminals in stores instead of swiping a credit card. Currently Google Wallet is associated with Android phones and is working with several other mobile manufacturing giants to make their smart phones Wallet-friendly while tying up with major credit card companies.
The Google Wallet concept would work quite well with tourists or rather useful to those who love to travel and would like to avoid the hassles of carrying several credit cards. All you need is a switched on smartphone. As a bonus, Google is also giving away $10 discount on a Google Pre-paid card to anyone who gives Wallet a try by the end of the year.
However, Google has already been sued by PayPal, accusing Google Wallet’s project leader, Osama Bedier, of “feeding confidential PayPal information to Google so that it can develop the NFC mobile payment system”. Yet, it can be concluded; Google Wallet will not be another debacle unlike Google Buzz and nearly-there-Google + due to its utility factor and remains the talk of the world.
Not surprising, this is probably the future of credit cards and mobile phone payment systems.
