Google Wallet May End Up Inside Your Actual Wallet

Several outlets are reporting, based on screenshots posted by Android Police that Google is (or "may be" — CNet calls the report "loosely sourced") about to introduce a lower-tech variant on its smartphone-based Google Wallet payment system. Instead of transferring payment information from an NFC-equipped phone, this would mean a physical payment card (like a conventional plastic credit or debit card), but one linked via Google's databanks to the user's existing bank or credit accounts. Upsides: less to carry, a simple way to suspend or cancel service on them (should the card be lost or stolen), and doesn't require you to carry your phone to make a credit or debit transaction — handy, since NFC readers are still thin on the ground. Downside: while perhaps no worse than putting the same information on your phone, it's one more step toward giving a third party all of your personal information in one place. A card that fits in a wallet probably makes a lot of sense: I live in a city with at least three pay-by-phone options in trials or fully available (CitiBank, Isis, and Google Wallet), but I can't buy ice cream or coffee with them yet. And there's no reason a card-shaped token couldn't use mag-stripes and NFC, too.

Comments

Re:Around your ass...

[grumling]

But that 2-3% is invisible to the customer. The only time I've seen any effort to point that out is with the few-and-far between gas stations that offer a cash discount. The only problem with them is that they tend to have a higher price to begin with.

Cash is anonymous

[aepervius]

As long as any replacement isn't fully anonymous, I will be a luddite on principle on matter of money. The potential for abuse and tracking are too great.

Re:Cash is expensive to handle

[DogDude]

Seriously, cash is a major pain in the ass for merchants and that cost gets passed on to consumers

You're completely wrong. As a merchant, cash is the cheapest way to get paid. Cash doesn't cost 2-3%. Nowhere close.

What problem does this solve?

[mbkennel]

What problem does this technology and initiative solve? Whose problem does it solve?

As far as I can tell the only problem these things "solve" is that some intermediary wants to take some of some other intermediary's free money.

There seems to be no benefit to the person they are trying to convince to use it, unless the competition lowers interchange fees to merchants and merchants pass some of it back. And that is about as likely as new developments in simian rectal aviation.

Re:Cash is expensive to handle

[DogDude]

I understand that. I'm a brick and mortar merchant. All that doesn't come anywhere close to 2-3% of sales.