As rumored, Google just announced their new service, Google Wallet… and unless Apple has some surprises up its sleeves when it comes to NFC, it looks likely that the search giant will have a year’s head start on Cupertino when it comes to the lucrative and burgeoning market of mobile payments.
Calling Google Wallet an “open” platform — a claim that will inspire either skeptical guffaws or trepidations of horror from those who have been following the debate about the Android platform’s so-called “openness” — Google Wallet will allow you to store your credit card, loyalty card or gift card information locally and securely on your Android phone, beaming it to merchants with just a wave of your NFC-equipped handset.
At first, Google will be just partnering with Mastercard, who will allow Google Wallet to be used at hundreds of thousands of existing PayPass terminals. As a stop gap until Google gets more credit partners on board, they’ll also be offering a virtual Google Prepaid Card which can be funded by any credit card, and which also comes with a $10 sign-up bonus and no transactions fees.
Google will also be launching Google Offers, which is a virtual couponing service tightly linked to Wallet. You will be able to store “clippings” of offers or deals at various merchants in Google Wallet, and these deals will then automatically be applied when you pay for the service with Google Wallet. This is actually pretty neat.
Right now, there’s not a lot of handsets short of Sprint’s Nexus S 4G that come with NFC, but by 2014, it’s thought that over 150 million handsets will be sold every year with NFC… including the iPhone.
This is potentially a huge business for Google… and they are establishing an early lead by getting in on NFC payments way before Apple is scheduled to do so. Is this a market Apple can afford to let Google conquer, or even have a year’s head start in? Let us know what you think in the comments.
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
18 responses to “Google Beats Apple To NFC Mobile Payments With Google Wallet”
How can they be ahead of a company that hasn’t said anything at all about being interested in NFC? Until Apple enters the market they’re not behind.
No its the fiture how can they risk somone getting ipod-like market dominance
Until it works on my iPhone, they’re not ahead of Apple
Seems like an utterly useless feature.
I work in the debit/credit industry. Let me assure you, an ‘open platform’ is not what you want when it comes to NFC payments. Further, I don’t want Google knowing what I buy and from where. Sure, they’ll claim they can send you great coupons, but they’re dossier of your life will deepen as well.
Unless Apple announces nothing at WWDC than yes, they’ll be behind but maybe this is a business model they don’t want to be involved in.
Having said that, one thing Apple makes a point to talk about is the amount of credit cards that are connected for one-click payments on iTunes. Not sure if they’ll use iTunes as a means of making transactions via NFC but I can’t imagine them not using that as ammunition to go up against Google.
They’re not bragging about those credit cards for nothing.
Apple is losing by default since they’re not showing up on the playing field. Wall Street has already decided that iOS is losing big to Android, so NFC only makes Android stronger.
” how is google ahead they are not winning ”
Take a look around you people. Google release NFC payment system. Apple IS interested but they have put it off for another year.
That makes them.
Behind.
The Google’s step towards a open commerce ecosystem is going
to draw a lot of attentions from the retailers as they get a new way to target
their potential customers and also increase the buyer population. However, the
geotargeting option might be a safeguard measure to save the public from
privacy intrusion.