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Topic: Google

Visa responds to Google Wallet with NFC mobile payment plan of its own

Summary: Google has officially launched the mobile payment app wars with the introduction of Google Wallet today. One of the Google's project partners is MasterCard, and its chief competitor already has a response and a game plan.

Rachel King

By for Between the Lines |

Google has officially launched the mobile payment app wars with the introduction of Google Wallet today. One of the Google's project partners is MasterCard, and its chief competitor already has a response and a game plan.

Visa’s head of Global Product Jim McCarthy took to the credit card company's official blog today to remind everyone that Visa is already on track with an NFC-enabled program of its own.

Visa already has a mobile payment program, Visa payWave, that is active at approximately 300,000 locations worldwide. (For more details about Visa's electronic payment schemes, check out SmartPlanet's full report.) Even though payWave might be simple, not enough consumers have really caught on to this product (or even MasterCard's PayPass).

On paper, Visa's NFC payment service actually looks fairly solid - especially with some big name financial partners attached to the project: Bank of America, Chase, US Bank and Wells Fargo.

McCarthy explains:

Our mobile solution in the United States is designed to be used on any mobile network, with any NFC-enabled smart phone, with any financial institution and on any payment product (credit, debit, prepaid). Bottom line: We are committed to providing consumers with choice by allowing them to make mobile payments with whatever mobile device they choose using the trusted accounts they already have.

As of now, Visa will launch its own digital wallet in the United States and Canada this fall. The big questions that remain are: How will Visa launch its NFC service...and will it do so with the help of one of Google's biggest competitors? (Read: Apple.)

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Topics: Google, Banking, Enterprise Software, Mobility

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11 comments
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  • Visa vs. Google

    I'd trust Visa before I trust Google. I don't see me using either PayWave or Google Wallet any time soon. But if I were to pick one, it would be Visa's PayWave.

    With Google, I couldn't trust my money wasn't being siphoned off to illegally fund Obama's reelection campaign. I want to say using Google Wallet would be over my dead body, but I wouldn't put it past them to glue an NFC chip to my cold dead fingers.
    Get-Smart
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Visa responds to Google Wallet with NFC mobile payment plan of its own

      @Get-Smart You should follow your tag name
      carlson1@...
      Reply Vote

    • RE: Visa responds to Google Wallet with NFC mobile payment plan of its own

      @Get-Smart

      Get your information from Fox news, huh? Does it make you feel good to listen to inane propaganda?
      ITOdeed
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Visa responds to Google Wallet with NFC mobile payment plan of its own

        @ITOdeed No, I listen to both.
        Get-Smart
        Reply Vote

    • RE: Visa responds to Google Wallet with NFC mobile payment plan of its own

      @Get-Smart And what the Republicans have been doing for years was legitimate? Now that the SuperPAC is legal, it is, but up until that point, not so much.
      Champ_Kind
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Visa responds to Google Wallet with NFC mobile payment plan of its own

        @Champ_Kind The Obamacrats totally dwarfed anything that has ever gone before, by an order of magnitude. The Republicans have been guilty of gaming the system, too, but not so egregiously. The excesses being perpetrated today can't be tolerated by anybody with a conscience.

        But to return to the topic at hand, Visa is part of a regulated financial industry. Google isn't, therefore operates unaccountably to its actions and leveraging of personal data. With the current political climate, there is no one who would be allowed to make them accountable, just like Goldman-Sachs.
        Get-Smart
        Reply Vote

    • RE: Visa responds to Google Wallet with NFC mobile payment plan of its own

      @Get-Smart This blog doesn't need any political ties to get your point accross. Google like Visa is a Company..NOT A PERSON! So it doesn't matter what political leanings you think the company has. I do not trust Google any more than I trust Visa. I use Google products all the time and I shop with Visa all the time but I am not trusting of any COMPANY to do things on my behalf politically. So please get your mind out of the political gutter that this nation is in and just focus on the fact that MORE competition is better even if the COMPANIES competing for your business doesn't always do things to please you!
      sailnoff
      Reply Vote

  • RE: Visa responds to Google Wallet with NFC mobile payment plan of its own

    @Get-Smart: Well-said! Many on the left try to vilify big business and the right, but ignore how a lot of businesses (Google, GE, GM, Facebook, Health Insurance, most of Wall Street and all of Hollywood come to mind) generously support the anti-business left, which seems self-destructive. It must be either extorted 'protection money', or they must be getting tax breaks and/or Obamacare exemptions in return.
    stormbringerPA
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Visa responds to Google Wallet with NFC mobile payment plan of its own

    Visa don't hitch your wagon to Apple! It will help no one but Apple.
    schmoeleco
    Reply 1 Vote

    • RE: Visa responds to Google Wallet with NFC mobile payment plan of its own

      @schmoeleco

      This is the best comment so far!
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      DAVE26AUG
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Visa responds to Google Wallet with NFC mobile payment plan of its own

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        gates08
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