Google has announced the release of a new service called “Google Wallet“.
Google Wallet is a payment service that many people have been anticipating for months. According to Google, the service will eventually be able to store all of your credit card numbers, gift cards, airline tickets, etc.
Users will then be able to use their phones to pay for products and services or even board airplanes.
The service will only be available to Sprint subscribers using the Nexus S 4G by Samsung.
At first, users will only be able to add Citi® MasterCard® cards and the Google Prepaid Card. Google plans that eventually, users will no longer need a traditional wallet as all of their payment methods will be stored electronically in Google Wallet.
Google Creating Web of Services
Google is really trying to bring all of their services together. Google Offers and Google Places are two services that have been receiving a lot of attention recently.
Google Wallet will be the main purchasing avenue for Google Offers and Google Offers will link to businesses within Google Places. Couple these three services with the rest of Google’s portfolio- Gmail, Google Docs, Picasa, Google Search, Google+, etc.- and you’ve got a lineup of services that will be hard for the 21st century consumer to avoid.
By implementing Google Wallet, the search engine giant hopes to create an electronic payment service that will interface will all of Google’s other services and eventually, turn into lots and lots of profit for the company.
Is Google Wallet Secure?
The most obvious concern about Google Wallet is the security implications. It sounds very scary that a service is being offered that will store all of your credit card numbers and financial information electronically. Although I am concerned about how secure the service will be- I do believe that as consumers, we will eventually pay for everything electronically.
The question is whether Google Wallet will be secure enough and trustworthy enough to gain a following or if it is too early to implement such a system.
According to Google, Google Wallet is more secure than the traditional system of having credit cards in your wallet.
Google has partnered with MasterCard to create a secure service called “MasterCard PayPass“. The service creates a separate partition within your mobile device known as the “Secure Element“. All of the information stored within the Secure Element will be encrypted and users will need to enter a pin-code in order to access the data.
Although no exact release date was announced, multiple sources believe that Google Wallet will be officially released this week and maybe even as soon as today!
