On Tuesday, September 20, Google introduced a new service Google Wallet, which allows the owners of NFC chip smartphones to pay for their purchases without contact.
It is possible to use a smartphone paying for the goods or services in the POS-es with payment terminals by MasterCard PayPass. In order to pay, the customer should hold the phone with the application Google Wallet, installed to the terminal, within a few centimeters distance and enter the PIN-code.
The cost of the purchase is withdrawn from the consumer’s card, is informed in Google blog. At the moment, Google Wallet supports two types of cards: MasterCards issued by Citi bank and virtual cards Google Prepaid Card, the balance of which can be uploaded from any plastic card.
In future, Google Wallet will also be servicing Visa, Discover and American Express. Currently, Google Wallet is only available in the USA. As stated in the blog All Things Digital, there are almost 150, 000 of PayPass terminals in the country, which are installed in shops, restaurants and taxi.
The only smartphone supporting Google Wallet is Nexus S 4G with Sprint mobile operator. In future, the application Google Wallet will be released for other smartphones with NFC chips. For example, this chip is in Nokia N9.
The service Google Wallet was presented in May 2011 and until September was tested in two cities – New York and San Francisco.
Mashable points out, that similar services are planned to be implemented by other companies as well in the nearest future.
So, the American providers Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile are developing the system of no-contact payments named Isis, and PayPal wants to add this option in its mobile application PayPal Mobile.
