
Coming soon: make your phone your wallet - Uncle_Sam
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/coming-soon-make-your-phone-your-wallet.html
======
51Cards
I have watched a lot of these initiatives come and go but this one is the
first that I think has a strong chance of success. The core elements are
already integrated for full functionality and offers. With a bank and credit
company on board, an existing hardware system deployed, and the ability to
quickly tie it into the millions of existing Google accounts I think this just
might be the tipping point. High percentage adoption by the consumer will take
awhile. Lots of phone upgrades, consumer trust, and general concept awareness
will take time.

Edit: I think this will be overlooked some as well. The Subway partnership is
huge. They have the most fast food stores in the world (I believe they
exceeded McDonalds last year). Talk about copious instant eyeball time!

~~~
cosgroveb
Merchant adoption is also necessary. It will take a long time to convince
small businesses to install these readers without some sort of subsidy.

~~~
jakehow
It works on the Mastercard PayPass hardware. Adoption is already pretty far
down the road on the POS side.

EDIT: Go here to search for Paypass merchants in your hood:
<http://www.google.com/wallet/where-it-works.html>

~~~
glhaynes
But until it's essentially _universal_ , that still shifts burden to the user:
they have to look around and try to figure out whether this alternative
payment method is accepted at this merchant. Why wouldn't they just whip out
their credit card that they _know_ is going to be accepted?

EDIT: What I mean to say is: if credit-card-swiping were particularly onerous,
I could see this easily taking off. But since it's not (at all!) and people
are trying to replace it with something that seems equally-if-not-more
burdensome, it's hard for me to see why this would catch on outside tech folks
that mostly do it for the geekfactor.

~~~
potatolicious
There are a few killer features that come to mind (though I'm not sure if
Google is already looking at them):

\- no paper receipts. Do I want my receipts? In an ideal world, of course, but
in real-life that just means more paper junk. Receipts are also awfully easy
to lose - making returns onerous. Imagine having an electronic receipt instead
of juggling all of that paper!

\- doubling up on loyalty cards and payment. Instead of swiping a loyalty card
once, and then again for actual payment, a NFC transaction can potentially do
both at once. This also reduces the number of cards I have to carry around
_dramatically_. Bonus points if they can make this work with my library card
(with the added bonus: if I'm late returning a book, they can just _charge me_
).

\- more fine-grained budgeting. Right now Mint knows if I spent $50 at
Staples. It doesn't know _what_ , though. An itemized electronic transaction
record would tell my budgeting software that the $50 was spent on printer ink,
instead of, say, a new gadget.

\- immediate feedback _without_ extensive POS modification. I've noticed some
grocery store checkouts now have a secondary printer that spits out special
offers to you (assuming you scan your frequent shopper card). This can be
expanded upon greatly _without_ modifying POS hardware - i.e., pushing
promotions directly to your phone.

------
glhaynes
It's hard for me to immediately see how this benefits me enough to get excited
about it [1] and I have mild anxiety over expanding my personal reliance on my
battery-driven, fairly-easily-breakable phone [2].

[1] In anything but the long-term, I'm going to still have to carry a wallet,
so what have I really gained? I'm not educated on the whole NFC thing, but
that's my point - they'll have to really do a great job of educating people on
why this is beneficial if they're gonna get Average Joe [and the store
servicing him] to jump on it.

[2] Not that that's necessarily rational; but see [1].

~~~
zer0her0
1 You've never had a magnetic strip fail on your card? or the numbers worn off
your card?

2 Just like you still have to carry cash in your wallet w/ your card?

~~~
ern
_1 You've never had a magnetic strip fail on your card? or the numbers worn
off your card?_

I am certain magnetic strip/smartcard failures happen far less often than flat
phone batteries.

------
yalogin
Wow. With the first release itself Google is doing many things. Not just
payments but also offers, coupon redeeming etc. This is devastating for all
the apps offering offers, coupons etc. The worst part (or best part for
Google) about this is its all Google. Third parties could integrate NFC
payments, but with the Google app doing the exact same thing and more, all the
other apps are now redundant.

EDIT: Square just started pushing into the bigger retailers with a POS system.
Its kind of screwed now with this too as Google offers a superior alternative
and a bigger brand name to merchants.

------
nodata
This is BIG. It means when you leave your house you need to bring:

* Your phone.

That's it.

Your phone is now your money, a dockable laptop, and your keys. This is
incredible: like living in a futuristic comic book.

~~~
tesseract
You forgot:

* Your credit card, for businesses that don't have RFID smart card readers

* Cash, for businesses that don't even take credit cards

* Public transit pass, at least until those start to be supported by phone NFC software, and/or

* Driver's license or ID

~~~
jarek
Point 1 is rendered unnecessary by point 2.

Point 3 can be a reality now if you want it
(<http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=1379>) and will be a reality for most
people soon enough.

Point 4 is not actually a necessity (unless you're driving). I've tried to
make a point not to carry my driver's license in my wallet (the plastic
doesn't own you) except for special occasions. It can be annoying at times,
but I've never had a situation where I needed my license for something
unplanned (as opposed to forgetting I'd need to prove identity/age at pre-
planned activities).

~~~
joejohnson
You must not live in NY. If you want to go to a bar, you will probably need an
ID. And if you want to get on the subway, you won't be able to pay with NFC
for probably many years to come.

~~~
jarek
Nope, I live in Toronto and don't use transit enough to justify a monthly pass
(I just carry 2-3 tiny tokens in my pocket), and don't make unplanned outings
to bars. In case of anything, I'm rarely more than half an hour away from home
in any case.

I guess most people can't or won't match my case, but I just wanted to
highlight that carrying ID doesn't have to be a necessity.

------
iandanforth
Isn't this common in Japan? Anyone want to chime in with their experiences
there?

~~~
georgieporgie
I have a Suica card sitting here on my desk. Suica is Japan Rail's refillable,
tap-payment system. It's been adopted for use at convenience stores and seems
to be all over the place now. Basically, anywhere likely to make small sales
to commuters is extremely likely to accept Suica.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suica>

The Wikipedia article mentions the VIEW card, which is a hybrid credit card
and Suica.

~~~
bostonvaulter2
Is it possible to have a Suica card built into the phone instead of being a
separate card?

~~~
teejae
Yes, it's standard in most phones sold in Japan. Charged to your monthly phone
bill.

------
losvedir
Why does it have to be a Nexus S specifically on Sprint? I have a Nexus S via
T-Mobile, with a NFC and all. Why wouldn't that work? Is it doing something
special on the Sprint infrastructure?

~~~
sern
According to the FAQ, the card is being emulated on the device's secure
element. My guess is that the Google Wallet program was preloaded only on the
Sprint Nexus S's secure element.

I fully expect a future version to do the security-critical stuff on a remote
server, which would allow the application to work without a secure element but
with a slower transaction time.

~~~
estel
All Nexus S phones, I believe, came with the PN65 secure chip: I'm not sure
what could be missing from them that's needed by Wallet.

~~~
chc
As sern said, what could be missing is the Google Wallet software.

------
brown9-2
Regardless of how useful this idea might be, it's nice to see Google getting
behind a new feature of theirs and pushing hard instead of letting it languish
(like other discontinued projects, the Nexus-One-we'll-be-the-store idea,
etc).

~~~
hullo
as this is only several hours old I don't think the evidence is in place to
really give an informed judgment on whether it will languish or not

~~~
brown9-2
I'm really referring to the NFC chip in general, it's been available in the
Nexus S since the phone launched in December.

------
motters
The comments here seem to be overwhelmingly positive, but if I were to use
this routinely doesn't it mean that not just my search information but also my
financial information is available to Google to analyze and/or sell to
advertisers or make available via backdoor APIs?. Google already has a lot of
information about a lot of people.

------
nodata
Unless we start seeing regular security updates on Android - independent of
manufacturer - we're going to see something that makes the Sony fiasco look
laughable in comparison.

------
dlitwak
I'm curious to see what effect this has on companies like Square, who seem to
have been leapfrogged a bit. But I guess since square's main offering is as a
point-of-sale credit-card swiper, I suppose there is a way they can change
their product offering to something that can read phones as well as take
cards.

------
spitfire
I think google might have just discovered another very large revenue stream.

Colour me gobsmacked but getting to be in the middle of the future of
transactions sounds like a great thing. Getting to be in the middle, and on
the advertising angle and the deals/coupon game all at once? Now I'm jealous.

------
Geee
Is there something that is exclusive to Google? Could this be implemented on
any phone with NFC right now?

------
pessimist
Any estimate on how [un] reliable a phone is vs a piece of plastic with a
magnetic stripe?

Also - this is not clear to me - what new pieces have to rollout for this to
work? New Point-of-sale machines AND new phones with NFC? COuld this
interoperate with an iPAD POS app like Square?

~~~
culturestate
NFC payments are not actually new in America - AmEx and Mastercard have been
using it for years (that's what the little chip in AmEx Blue cards is for), so
the infrastructure is largely already in place. Google's method of keeping
your information in a centralized location and the idea of building it into
your cellphone instead of a card is the biggest change.

~~~
spydez
The annoying thing about the chip in my AmEx is that the charge shows up as
"Expresspay Blue" on my statement, instead of showing up as the merchant
("Best Buy" or what have you). This throws off my pretty charts and budgets in
Mint and has resulted in me reverting to just swiping the card everywhere.

I still have a dozen or so "Expresspay Blue" charges sitting there in Mint,
uncategorized, because I can't remember who I paid $12.57 to back in October
(or whatever).

Minor annoyance? Absolutely. But if NFC-payment-via-phone has the same issue,
you can bet money that I'll ditch it and go back to swiping my credit card.

------
rglover
If this were to gain traction with more banks/creditors/business, it will be
huge. The idea has been done before (not necessarily credit cards) but not
with a name like Google. The top thought in my mind is security. I'm guessing
the app will be password protected, but what other security measures are
involved? Another setback is the supported devices. Google needn't be naive
and only implement this in Android devices. Can't wait to see where they take
the idea.

~~~
sadlyNess
On Supported devices: i perceive that they are planning this as a long-term
all-over-the-place thing, so they are probably talking to as many device
manufacturers and as many banks to support this.

------
ChrisArchitect
huge move for Mastercard PayPass. But only works with Nexus S now? Are there a
ton of phones coming to market with NFC capability?

~~~
nextparadigms
All Blackberry phones will have NFC soon, too, and I assume Google will push
all Android manufacturers to use it.

~~~
shrikant
Also FWIW, the Nokia C7 has a 'dormant' NFC chip in it.

It will be enabled in a future software update - Nokia's basically waiting for
the technology to enter at least the early adoption phase. (I think that's a
pity though - the C7's NFC capabilities will inevitably be drowned out by the
iPhone and Android NFC-enabled handsets. Another classic example of Nokia
missing the boat.)

------
bproper
Interesting to me that, Google mentioned they were interested in bringing game
mechanics directly to the wallet app.

~~~
SeoxyS
I certainly hope that's not true. It'd be a deal-breaker for me. I don't want
to play games with my wallet. I want it to be a simple, serious and functional
tool for dealing with money.

Some things should not be game-ified.

------
SeoxyS
I can't wait for the iOS version of this. Integration with Square.app would be
really neat, too!

~~~
jokermatt999
With how long it took Google Voice to be accepted by Apple, I'm not too
optimistic there will be one soon.

------
southpolesteve
Mobile gas stations have had a touch and go payment system for a while called
Speedpass. It is very slick and I use it all the time. I even go out of my way
to visit Mobile gas stations to use it. I can't wait till this is everywhere

------
MatthewPhillips
Looks like they decided to reuse the Google Wave logo; colors are even the
same order.

~~~
rudiger
Well, yeah, the colors are in the same order as the Google logo.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Excluding duplicates, yes.

------
retube
... and the relentless quest for consumer data continues. It's a nice concept,
one that has been hyped for a long time. But the trade-off is sharing/giving
up even more personal data.

------
aw3c2
Is this anonymous or does the place afterwards know my phone's ID?

------
yaix
>> Someday, even things like boarding passes, tickets, ID and keys could be
stored in Google Wallet.

I think it's called a "single point of failure". Always a "good" thing to
have.

------
thinkcomp
In light of the announcement, our updated mobile payments comparison chart:
<https://www.facecash.com/versus/>

------
jacobbijani
My phone already is my wallet: <http://jacobbijani.com/post/4209441008>

------
larrykubin
My phone and my wallet have been together for 3-4 years now (in a totally
different way):

<http://imgur.com/utmU6>

It's nice because if the phone dies, I can still access my ID, credit cards,
and bus pass. The idea of an electronic version is very nice though since it
can expand to so many things without taking up more space. With this physical
wallet, I just carry the bear essentials (ID, Credit/Debit Card, Insurance,
Public Transit Pass)

------
MatthewPhillips
So what's the startup idea for this?

------
dsl
Does anyone have an iPod cable handy? My wallet's battery is dead!

------
VMG
.. in the US

------
pitdesi
cool - they integrated Payments and Deals into a phone. Great.

Will anyone use this? Not anytime soon. Right now they are integrated with one
phone on one network with one credit card. (Nexus S on Sprint with a Citi
Mastercard). The number of people that have that is pretty small, but then
they also have to use it at a vendor which supports it. Google did a great job
with this, partnering with Paypass so there is an existing vendor base already
<http://www.google.com/wallet/where-it-works.html…> that being said, it just
seems too complicated at the moment, and not a huge value add. I love Paypass
already, and it's not that hard for me to knock my wallet onto the device.
This doesn't really make it that much better.

We're really a couple of years off from broad-based adoption of NFC. The other
thing is that Apple has a huge say in adoption. Some say the iPhone 5 won't
have NFC. Even if it does, there is no guarantee that Apple will support
Google Wallet right off the bat (See: Google voice - yes it's supported now
but still crippled and it took a LONG time).

~~~
flamingbuffalo
and, even if iphone5 has nfs, it's probably unlikely that apple would support
google wallet instead of creating their own solution.

~~~
cloudwalking
Do you really see Apple creating a deals program?

They _might_ integrate payments with iTunes account somehow, but unless they
buy Square, I'm not sure they'll make a big push.

And if the iPhone 5 does have NFC, I'm sure there'll be an app for Google
Wallet.

~~~
evgen
There will be a Google wallet app only if Apple allows it, which is unlikely.
A more likely path is that Apple will partner with someone like Intuit (whose
former CEO and current board chairman sits on Apple's board) and merge NFC in
with Intuit's GoPay system. If Apple wants to do to the mobile payment
industry what it did to the music industry it will partner with Intuit and
offer merchants a "business ready" iPad 3 that will act as a POS terminal and
hook in to something like an iOS version of quickbooks. Give away the hardware
as a loss-leader for the payment service and cut a lot of middlemen out of the
system.

Since Apple is already on the path to testing out iPad POS services in the
Apple store they can refine the hardware/software and then roll out something
that works well for both the user and the merchant.

------
chailatte
Monopoly.

First Google came for the payment app/website, and I didn't speak out because
I wasn't doing that.

Then Google came for the file sharing app/website, and I didn't speak out
because I wasn't doing that.

Then Google came for the social app/website, and I didn't speak out because I
wasn't doing that.

Then Google came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

~~~
pessimist
Maybe I'm foolish for responding to a troll but I dont understand why Google
is being considered a monopoly? Its not even a bit-player yet in payments,
file sharing or social. It has high (~2/3) but not not monopoly share of
search in the US, and higher ~80% share of search ads.

Compared to the monopolistic positions held by Microsoft, Apple (itunes) and
Facebook, hardly seems unusual.

