Google launches in-app payments for web apps

Developers are now able to charge people for things from within their web applications using Google's payment system, the company has said.

The in-app payment capability can be integrated into any web app, no matter where it is hosted, Google product manager Amit Fulay said in a blog post on Tuesday, announcing the availability of the service's API. However, the move is particularly important for the company's Chrome OS and its web app store.

Chrome OS is entirely based around web apps, so enabling in-app payments is crucial for encouraging developers to address that market. According to Fulay, it only takes the addition of a few lines of code to add Google's in-app payment facility to a web app.

Google only takes a five-percent cut of the money made through in-app purchases that use its systems. Apple, by way of contrast, takes 30 percent of in-app purchases made on its iOS platform.

However, Fulay stressed, developers wanting to integrate the service into their web apps will for now need to have a US bank account in order to get paid. He said Google hoped to expand the number of possible developer locations as soon as possible. Those making the in-app purchases can be in any of 140 countries.

Google gained the Social Gold technology it uses for in-app purchases when it bought the virtual currency company Jambool in August last year. Jambool co-founder and chief executive Vikas Gupta went on to head up Google's payments team.