Google Wallet Is Launched

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I was chatting online with a blogger yesterday and we got into an animated discussion about Google’s latest baby – the Google Wallet.

“Tap, pay, and save with it.

In the past few thousand years, the way we pay has changed just three times-from coins, to paper money, and then plastic cards.

Now we are on the brink of the next big shift.”

So goes Google’s vision for this mobile application.

Google Wallet is a phone application that literally turns your phone into a wallet at the point of sale.

The Launch is supposed to be Google’s way to make mobile shopping a very pleasurable experience for businesses especially for the consumers. From the part of the consumer, payment is made even easier; and, from the merchants or businesses’ end, promos, discounts and offers like coupons to be given away and loyalty programs can now be easily facilitated. Credit cards can also be put in. In the future, Google is envisioning that airline boarding passes and tickets, ID and even keys could be stored in it!

Currently, Google is still field-testing it in the US and is working with Citi, MasterCard, Sprint, and First Data as well as a number of retailers. Expect it to be launched officially in the summer.

It is combining NFC or near-field communication with what they are calling PN65, a secure element chip paired with NFC. There is no need of swiping.

It’s supposed to work in just two very simple steps:

1. Look for the Google Wallet or MasterCard PayPass symbols at checkout.

2. And just simply tap your phone into the reader!

Voila! Payment has been processed and made smoothly without using a credit card.

Well, you have to hand it to Google to market it anew as if it were something revolutionary when in fact; it is not a totally foreign concept at all. I would like to think that the reason Google has partnered with MasterCard on this endeavor is that the latter has been using tapping of credit cards to wirelessly pay instead of swiping the card (the concept behind the MasterCard PayPass).

And, here is a bit of trivia that was shared with me regarding this new mobile wallet: the VP of Payments of Google used to be PayPal.

Well, if you want to know and read more about it you can check the complete details in their official website.

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Source by Elmar Sandyck