20 September 2011 | Author: R Wood Media Intern

Google Wallet opens for business

Google Wallet has officially launched on its first smartphone, in collaboration with Citi Group and Mastercard, with the promise of other credit card giants soon to follow suit.

According to CNET, Visa and American Express, as well as a number of other mobile wireless carriers, have announced their own plans to launch similar services.

The service, first announced in May, makes use of Near Field Communications (NFC), allowing users to swipe or tap their phones to pay by credit card rather than reaching for their wallet.

Vice president of payments Osama Bedier wrote on the Google blog: "With Google Wallet, you can tap, pay and save using your phone and near-field communication (NFC)."

"Google Wallet enables you to pay with your Citi Mastercard credit card and the Google Prepaid Card, which can be funded with any of your existing plastic credit cards.

"Our goal is to make it possible for you to add all of your payment cards to Google Wallet, so you can say goodbye to even the biggest traditional wallets.

"This is just the beginning, and while we're excited about this first step, we look forward to bringing Google Wallet to more phones in the future."

Early adopters of the service will also benefit from a $10 free bonus to their Google Prepaid Cards if they set up the Google Wallet service on their phones before the end of the year.

The service is currently only available to a small handful of people using the Nexus S 4G smartphone in the United States.

Google is the first service to break into the market with a digital wallet but with competitors already planning to follow suit, it's only a matter of time before near field communication comes to the UK

Home | Careers | RSS | Contact Us | Newsletter

International sites: