Google Pursues Role In Mobile Payments

(Reuters) - Google is joining Citigroup and Mastercard to set up a mobile payment system that will turn Android phones into a kind of electronic wallet, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.

The new technology, which is in its early stages, will allow consumers to wave their Android phones in front of a small reader at the checkout counter to make payments, the Journal reported.

The planned payment system would allow Google to offer retailers more data about their customers and help them target advertisements and discount offers to mobile device users near their stores, the sources told the WSJ.

Google is not expected to get a cut of the transaction fees, the paper said.

Initially, holders of Citigroup-issued debit and credit cards would be allowed to pay for purchases by activating a mobile payment application developed for one current model and many coming models of Android phones, the paper said.

Google, Citigroup and Mastercard could not immediately be reached for comment by Reuters outside regular U.S. business hours.

(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore; Editing by Dhara Ranasinghe)

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions.

Comments

[Lahonda]

02:23 AM on 03/29/2011

PCI compliance?

[EricBishop]

09:20 PM on 03/28/2011

The banks, payment processors and wireless providers should be ashamed of themselves. This should have been out on phones 3 years ago.

[theveggiedude]

02:24 AM on 03/29/2011

"The planned payment system would allow Google to offer retailers more data about their customers..."

Thanks but no thanks. Enjoy your Android phones. You deserve them.

[menschmaschine5]

10:12 AM on 03/29/2011

Oh sure, like Android phones will be the only ones to give out personal info.

[EricBishop]

09:00 PM on 03/29/2011

Yes, but the bottleneck was having NFC on the phone. The technology was available 3 years ago. The players were dragging their feet while they positioned themselves for a bigger share of the profits. Android's open platform will allow 3rd party apps that do the same thing without giving any additional data.

[keysoftheraw]

06:45 PM on 03/28/2011

Innovation in the cloud and mobile is happening too fast. Any payment processing application needs to work out of the box. There is not time to wait for version 2.4 because money will be changing hands, and if the code isn't secure then the money has a chance of changing into the wrong hands.

Chrome, Google's Browser, is still giving away awards for security bug fixes. I just hope that no company jumps the shark and pushes through a system to market that hasn't been vigorously tested to the scale that it will be implemented.

[TheSecularist]

05:23 PM on 03/28/2011

According to 60 Minutes, Google is dodging taxes by incorporating in Zug, Switzerland.

[Tanker10a]

12:32 PM on 03/29/2011

Yeah! And your point is?
Did you happen to catch Chambers of CISCO trying to be a boy scout while talking from both sides of his mouth? There's a trick!