It is a nightmare to walk around with all this physical cards in the wallet, like debit cards, credit cards and all the gift cards. What if we can store all this things in a phone? What about all the paper money and coins that is growing in your wallet like a balloon in your pocket? Do we need this?
Google and Apple is one of my favorite companies in this universe, with high degree of innovation. Google demonstrated the new Google Wallet at a press conference on May 26, 2011, but it was released for the U.S market only on September 19, 2011.
Google Wallet is a mobile payment system that allow its users to store debit cards, credit cards, loyalty cards and gift cards among other things, as well as redeeming sales promotions on their mobile phone.
The integration of Google Wallet and Gmail allows users to send money through Gmail attachments, and this reminds me like PayPal. You can simply send money to your friend with a simple email address. It can`t be more easy.
I`m not in doubt, this wireless payment solution is a product for the future, but so far it`s not a big hit in the U.S. The service works with the 300,000 plus MasterCard PayPass merchant locations, with Visa licensing their Visa PayWave system to Google for use in Wallet as of September 20, 2011.
Google is probably not the right company for this business? It is a great business in China, so we know it works out there. Apple is probably the right company to do something with that. They are the right company to fix it.
Apple will launch its new iPhone 6 on September 9, and it will feature NFC (Near Field Communication), according to rumors. Apple`s biggest post-PC rival Google is already implementing NFC for wireless payment.
There is a huge difference between Google and Apple. First of all; Apple has much more phone users than Google, and they already hosts millions of credit cards and processes billions of dollars worth of transaction through its mobile application and content store.
Apple can implement the new wireless system on its hundreds of brick and mortar stores and give users a big reason to sign up for the new system. They can lauch some promotions in the stores to attract more NFC transactions.
Apple have a big opportunity as a marketing platform by generating advertising revenue from customer brands wanting to reach shoppers while in a store. Itunes accounts have been used in Apple`s marketplace, but is very tiny compared to the vast retail market.
Tesla`s CEO Elon Musk`s «baby» and now eBay`s Paypal and Square will be challenged. PayPal is still very popular, many thanks to a large pool of merchants that supports the system. Square which recently introduced money transfer through text messaging will probably lose some market share in the future.
The U.S consumers has not yet adopted the Google Wallet, and Apple`s success with their wireless transaction system will largely depend on the acceptance of the retail industry. A group of chains has formed a company in 2012. One of them is Wal-Mart Stores Inc, and they will try to build a mobile-payment system which is not yet released.
Apple seems to cooperate with Visa, MasterCard and American Express, but this is still rumors. I will wait for some more news on September 9. Anyway; wireless money transaction is a lucrative business. The whole world is built on money transactions.
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