Internet giant, Google Inc., which is reported to be designing its own mobile handset product, may also have its eye on the wireless payment market…
Adding to its rapidly growing suite of mobile applications and services, the search giant has just published a patent application for an SMS text message-payment system, ostensibly dubbed “GPay,” which would allow mobile users signed up to the system to make private transactions for goods and services, detailing a payment they want to make to a specific recipient.
A patent application, originally filed in February 2006, but only the application was just made public by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office last week, describes how a mobile phone could trigger a “computer-implemented method of effectuating an electronic online payment.”
“The system described in the patent application is similar to existing mobile-payment services, including the mobile version of PayPal.”
While handful of SMS text message-based payment systems have certainly been developed before, but no doubt Google, with its own unique touch will surely try to do things differently.
“Major concerns that the web giant will need to address are security, ease-of-use, and practicality for business users.”
Using text messages, on the system called “GPay,” Google would then authenticate payments, debit the purchaser’s account, and credit the seller’s account. Payments could also be made externally from one bank account to another, meaning that recipients would not necessarily need to have an account with GPay.
Perceiving that future growth will come largely from advertising to mobile users, Google has launched a series of ambitious initiatives to accomplish in the mobile world as it has done in the online universe.
The company has been making many of its popular online applications, including its leading search engine and its Google Maps and Gmail services, available on mobile phones over the last couple of years.
However, when asked to comment on the GPay rumors, a Google spokesperson would only comment that “we file patent applications on a variety of ideas that our employees come up with. Some of those ideas later mature into real products or services, while some do not.”
“Google already has an online payment system called Google Checkout, launched a year ago. In May it released the mobile version of Google Checkout, which works only for online purchases.”
The difference between existing mobile payment systems and GPay (the term the application says would be used to initiating payment sessions via text message) is, of course, that GPay is backed by Google.
In theory, Google could offer merchants a discount on (or elimination of) transaction processing fees in exchange for advertising purchases by the merchant — making it a much more formidable competitor to other novel forms of payment being brought to market by large financial services companies such as Visa.
In June Verizon Wireless, the No. 2 U.S. carrier said it would offer subscribers mobile-payment options through privately held Obopay. Verizon called the service “the first mobile payment offering for any major U.S. carrier.” Three weeks later Obopay announced the closing of a third round of venture funding, worth $29 million.
The mobile market has long been seen as a part of Google’s wider strategy to make the world’s information easily accessible to everyone. Google has struck deals with mobile makers such as LG and Samsung to get its software onto handsets, but analysts have predicted that the company is planning a more ambitious move to take on Apple’s iPhone with a so-called “Gphone.” Google has so far refused to comment.
Still, the growing array of Google mobile initiatives does not have a cohesive centerpiece until the long-rumored mobile device with the Google brand — already dubbed the GPhone and reportedly in development by Taiwanese handset manufacturer HTC — makes its appearance.