Google Wallet Gets Serious
August 02, 2012
By Ray Deck, TMCnet Contributing Writer
Google (News - Alert) Wallet made the jump from novelty to serious payment solution this week, when Google announced that its Near Field Communications (NFC) powered platform would support a full assortment of U.S. credit card companies.
Google Wallet is a smartphone app designed to eliminate the need to carry a wallet filled with credit cards, cash and receipts. It is the bleeding edge of finance virtualization and shows great promise with strong early reviews.
Google Wallet has been tested on a limited number of devices and with a very narrow segment of credit card companies. It’s a good thing too, since Google Wallet has experienced a few security concerns on both stock and rooted Android (News - Alert) Devices.
The recent announcement about expansion goes hand-in-hand with some security updates as well. The encrypted secure bit has been moved off of the device itself into the Google Wallet cloud.
This solves several problems. In the past, software updates to the phone could corrupt the stored data, and a stolen phone would equate with a stolen credit card. No longer are these things true. For good measure, Google also introduced the capability to remotely disable a mobile wallet app should a phone be lost or stolen.
Security and lack of widespread deployment were the two biggest complaints about Google Wallet, and this announcement seems to indicate that Google is listening to its customers. There are approximately 200,000 retailers that currently accept MasterCard (News - Alert) PayPass, the backend solution that accepts payment from Google Wallet.
We can expect that number to grow rapidly as Google Wallet begins to spread to more users and more devices.
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Edited by Braden Becker