Google Wallet like Digital Wallet:No Need to carry your Credit/Debit Cards

Google Wallet payment program for mobile devices.Most of the people around the world don’t know that Google released a product with android  past 5 months back named as Google Wallet and as of now it was only in few countries like USA ,UK etc.

Google Wallet is a mobile app that will make your phone your wallet. It stores virtual versions of your existing plastic cards on your phone, along with your coupons, and eventually, loyalty and gift cards. Our intention is that Google Wallet will be an open mobile wallet holding all the cards and coupons you keep in your leather wallet today.

When the Nexus S came out it was one of the first phones to have a built-in chip that enables contactless communications mobile payment systems. Today the other shoe dropped with the announcement of Google Wallet and partnerships with MasterCard, Citi, First Data, Sprint, and others.

Here’s how it works: You download the Google Wallet app to your NFC-equipped Android phone and pair it with your existing credit card or Google prepaid virtual card. Then you go into any store that accepts MasterCard PayPass and wave your phone in front of the reader when you are checking out. For security, you also have to enter a PIN number on the phone. The amount of your purchase will be charged to your card, even if you don’t have a network connection or signal.

Google also announced Google Offers, which is their answer to Groupon. Google Offers are deals on products and services at online and local businesses. The Google Wallet app will download the offers automatically, and it can also store loyalty cards and receipts for participating merchants.

Google Wallet is already supported by any merchant using a PayPass reader. According to Google, over 120K such terminals are in use today just in the US. And to spur further adoption, Google, in partnership with First Data, is offering a free reader and $100 of free processing to new merchants. Normal merchant credit card processing fees apply, but Google does not take a cut or charge anything extra on top of that.

Unfortunately for Android developers, the secure payment APIs and hardware will not be open except to authorized applications:

                          “Your payment credentials are stored in a chip called the Secure Element contained within your Nexus S 4G. The Secure Element is isolated from your phone’s main operating system and hardware. Only authorized programs like Google Wallet can access the Secure Element to initiate a transaction.“

Google, however, is touting the new system as an “open commerce ecosystem:
“Google Wallet will be ‘open’ in these ways:

          • Google Wallet will support many payment instruments, with the goal being to
            create virtual versions of all the plastic cards that exist today.

          • Google Wallet will establish APIs that issuing banks can develop for that will make
             integrating payment instruments into Google Wallet a reasonably straightforward process.

          • Google Wallet will establish APIs to enable transfer of offers, loyalty programs,
            receipts, and more at the point of sale.

         • Google Wallet can be installed on Nexus S 4G available on Sprint, and potentially
           over time, other mobile devices and platforms as well.”

The new service will be rolled out starting this summer in New York, San Francisco, and Portland on the Sprint Nexus S 4G. Expect to see it expand to more areas and other NFC-enabled Android phones soon afterwards. Payment terminals must be ISO 14443 or 18092 standard
               Suspiciously absent from the announcement was Visa, the world’s largest credit and debit card processing company. Rumor has it that Visa will be partnering with Apple on a competing service for the iPhone 5.