San Francisco — According to reports swirling in BusinessWeek, says that Google is developing its own NFC-based wireless payment system that could go tête-à-tête with not just possible options from Apple but also upcoming industry standards, a pair of insiders said Tuesday.
The service, based on near-field communication, would empower users to buy goods at stores with an Android 2.3 or later phone like the Nexus S just by getting close to an NFC transceiver, as well as use discount codes, say reports.
As expected, the search engine titan Google reportedly plans to debut a payment and advertising service for retail mobile payments later this year.
The company declined to comment.
Image Courtesy: (InformationWeek)
A payment system was virtually formulated on near-field communication (NFC) technology, the service would let consumers pay for items merely by waving or tapping their smartphones near a register at checkout, according to Bloomberg Businessweek, which cited two people familiar with the plans. NFC wireless transmits and receives data from a distance of 4 inches.
Currently, the technology is so far limited to Google Places interaction and the otherwise handful of limited utilities available as such. Google unfurled its intentions more clearly last month when it bought Zetawire to bolster its wireless payment options.
According to reports, based on anonymous sources, lines up with recent comments from Google CEO Eric Schmidt. “You will be able to walk in a store and do commerce. You would bump for everything and eventually replace credit cards,” he said of NFC at the Web 2.0 Summit in November.
Google is not alone in targeting mobile payments, a market expected to be worth $1.13 trillion by 2014, according to IE Market Research. Late last year, Verizon, AT&T, and T-Moble unveiled Isis, their own plan for NFC payments due in mid-2011, and eBay is said to be functioning on a system where phones could beam PayPal payments, also due later this year. NFC is a technology that communicates only over very short ranges — a matter of inches — and is built into very few phones currently on the market.
“We plan to create a mobile wallet that ultimately eliminates the need for consumers to carry cash, credit and debit cards, reward cards, coupons, tickets, and transit passes,” Michael Abbott, Isis CEO, said at the time.
Just this December, Visa approved DeviceFidelity’s In2Pay MicroSD for smartphones such as some BlackBerry models, the iPhone, and the Samsung Vibrant Galaxy S.
“In addition to issuing plastic magnetic stripe or chip-enabled payment cards, financial institutions can now consider offering their account holders a new technology that empowers them to transform their existing phones into fully functional mobile payment devices,” said Bill Gajda, head of Visa Mobile.
Google’s plans include a phone chip that would include a shopper’s financial information, as well as any coupons or gift and store-loyalty cards, Businessweek said.