Google wants to do away with your wallet

david75

Report: Credit Giants Team Up With Google to Drive Mobile Payments


The Mountain View, California, company is working on a partnership with credit industry giants MasterCard and Citigroup that would allow you to make real-world purchases at stores using your smartphone, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.

If the partnership materializes, buying groceries may require little more than a wave of your smartphone across an installed card reader at the checkout counter.

The partnership would allow for cardholders to pay for retail items after activating an app on Android NFC-enabled smartphones. The phones could then be swiped liked credit cards across card readers enabled with near field communication, or NFC, at participating retailers.

As Wired’s Epicenter blog reported earlier Monday morning, Google will begin testing the mobile payments service in key markets — New York and San Francisco — within the next four months. Other test markets include Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington D.C., according to a report from Bloomberg.

Google would pay for the installation of thousands of NFC terminals in the major cities. The terminals will be built by VeriFone Systems, a manufacturer of point-of-sale electronic payment technologies.

As with many other Google experiments, the push into mobile payments would serve as a loss-leader for the company’s advertising business, sources told the Journal.

Google would be able to offer retailers more data about customers and purchasing habits, while tailoring its ad targeting and promotional offerings to smartphone users. The company isn’t expected to take a cut of the transactions.

The mobile payments initiative faces some challenges. Currently, only one NFC-enabled smartphone is on the market — Google’s Nexus S (above). Samsung’s successor to its popular Galaxy S smartphone, the Galaxy S II, boasts NFC capability, but isn’t slated for release until the summer of 2011.

Also, it’s been difficult to imagine a major disruption of a massive industry like that of the credit industry that’s already established. One big reason: companies like Visa rely on trunks — shared lines that provide network access to a series of endpoints rather than providing them individually — and leased lines to provide retailers with reliable credit card terminal service.

One attractive option to companies like Google and other mobile-payment startups would be to cut out the credit card companies completely. Instead of using the card companies’ private networks, mobile payment could be made over a given smartphone carrier network.

But any attempt to circumvent the credit card companies’ private networks over 3G or 4G access runs into the problem of network reliability. A wealth of frustrated customers unable to pay for a meal because of spotty network service is less than ideal for any mobile-payment initiative.

That’s most likely the reason why Google is teaming up with the major credit card companies, instead of trying to bypass them. And Google isn’t alone in doing so. Joint mobile payment venture ISIS — which finds AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile partnering up with Discover Financial Services — is Google’s main competition in the mobile payments arena. ISIS is reported to begin testing its payments network this year, according to Bloomberg.

Google did not respond to our requests for comment.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/03/google-mobile-nfc-mastercard-citigroup/

CiaranMT

Seems like a premise that could suffer easily from hacking.

david75

I expected this to get the New World Order brigade marching on it..

kaahooters

conspericy? google dosent like ppl having leather wallets, so no wallets , no need for leather, no need for cows NO MORE BURGERS OR STEAK!!!!!!:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

Emme

Lovely idea, especially if there was a one-world government and a one-world currency :rolleyes:, but imagine if all the electronic networks worldwide went offline? I don't see people willing to part with their fiat money anytime soon.

kaahooters wrote: »

conspericy? google dosent like ppl having leather wallets, so no wallets , no need for leather, no need for cows NO MORE BURGERS OR STEAK!!!!!!

Funny that, I used to date a guy who worked in Google who was a strict vegan!!:D

HugoDrax

'And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.'

Google = 6 letters.:D

CiaranMT

HugoDrax wrote: »

'And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.'

Google = 6 letters.:D

6 = 666 now?

joebucks

CiaranMT wrote: »

6 = 666 now?

3+3 =6 :eek::pac:

Rodin

and if my phone is stolen? how do i stop someone using it to buy something before i get it shut down

HugoDrax

CiaranMT wrote: »

6 = 666 now?

Trying to deny reality or has Satan taken you over too eh?:)

CiaranMT

HugoDrax wrote: »

Trying to deny reality or has Satan taken you over too eh?:)

My sister must be possessed. She's 15. 1+5=6 :eek:

Priori

This sentence is six words long!

Emme

HugoDrax wrote: »

Google = 6 letters.:D

The first "G" looks like a 6, turn the second "g" upsidedown and flip it so it looks like a 6, and turn the "e" upsidedown and it looks like a 6.

Google = 666?:rolleyes:

CiaranMT

Emme wrote: »

The first "G" looks like a 6, turn the second "g" upsidedown and flip it so it looks like a 6, and turn the "e" upsidedown and it looks like a 6.

Google = 666?:rolleyes:

Place the remaining 'l' between the two 'o's and it'll look like cock and balls... :pac:

Priori

CiaranMT wrote: »

Place the remaining 'l' between the two 'o's and it'll look like cock and balls... :pac:

Brilliant! :pac:

caseyann

Seems to me people who have no money and have to count every penny they have would suffer, when they introduce taxation on people wanting to spend it etc...