The Virtual Wallet Has Arrived

The Wallet is coming. The Wallet is coming. The soaring use of smartphones is bringing reality to the concept of mobile payments. Google Inc. is the latest company to announce plans to launch a new mobile payment service that allows users to store personal credit cards information, loyalty cards, and gift cards on a smartphone.

By using near field communication, or NFC, Google Wallet will provide swift and easy transactions. All the consumer will have to do is tap his Android phone on a special PayPass-enabled terminal at his store’s checkout counter.

Commercial launch is expected this summer on the Sprint Nexus S 4G, but is sure to be available to other carriers in the future. Google Wallet is expected to draw a lot of attention to this exciting new field. And Google Wallet plans to help consumers save money by offering them discounts, promotions and loyalty rewards.
Big names in the world of credit cards, data applications and wireless phones teamed up for the launch. At an event last week, Google, Citi, MasterCard, First Data and Sprint demonstrated the Google Wallet. In its launch version, consumer payments will be conducted by either a PayPass eligible Citi Master Card or a virtual Google Prepaid card.

While this app seems to have the tools to change consumer to consumer transactions, many fret about the security of Google Wallet. These days hackers seem to be able to break through security in a variety of ways and have attacked major corporate and government networks.

Proponents argue that smart phones have locking capabilities, and therefore, using Google Wallet is safer than using a physical wallet. Though this is a strong argument for using a virtual wallet, it seems that these critics have overlooked the most crucial problem with cellular devices. Battery-life is severely limited on smart phones. Users are not only using their phones for calls but are using up battery-life by watching YouTube videos and checking their e-mails. In the case of an emergency, individuals can count on having their credit cards on their person. This fear will cause consumers to always keep their wallets on them. Google Wallet will certainly be successful, but it will not replace the physical wallet.

Visa recently unveiled plans for its digital wallet, which will support NFC payments for a wide variety of e-commerce and mobile transactions. The wallet will store both Visa and non-Visa account information. The service, which should go live this fall in the U.S. and Canada, has already signed up 14 major financial institutions to participate.

Article published by: Trees Full Of Money