This past Thursday, Google unleashed their new mobile wallet platform and completed field tests in New York and San Francisco. This new platform, (a rehash of the older Google Checkout) will allow people with certain NFC phones, to pay for merchandise in retail shops by tapping their phones against a payment terminal. Does this seem futuristic, convenient, or just unsecure?
In the beginning, Google Wallet will support Mastercard credit cards from CitiBank and users can pay for items at over 120,000 U.S. shops including Macy’s, Walgreens, Subway, Noah’s Bagels, American Eagle, Bloomingdale’s, Peet’s Coffee, Toys ‘R’ Us and many more.
Another launch partner is Sprint. Being that it sells Google’s Nexus S phone, which is currently one of the only phones in the U.S. with the ability of using the new Google Wallet. The Nexus S supports NFC, an open standard backed by many companies including Microsoft, Visa, Sony, Nokia and AT&T. First Data Corp., a unit of the Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. private-equity firm, has been delegated to be the program’s trusted service manager, which loads a consumer’s payment card credentials to a secure chip, through a process called over-the-air provisioning. On another note, Android now supports NFC technology and additional phones are due out with this feature included, as this year progresses.
Google will not be taking a cut of the transaction revenue from Google Wallet payments. The company said it intends to make its’ money from it, by running a coupon system from within the Wallet application itself.
“We’re extending an open invitation to merchants and ecosystem partners like payment networks, carriers and banks to join us in creating tomorrow’s best shopping experience,” said Stephanie Tilenius, vice president of commerce for Google. “It’s important to realize we’re just getting started,” Stephanie, said in a presentation. “This vision will take a while to come to fruition.”
What do you think? Is this the way we will all shop in the future?
Or will this fade away like Google Checkout did?
