Google Wallet: Just the Facts

Posted on May 4, 2012 by popadmin

As the world continues to grow in the realm of technology, people are able to carry less and less around with them. We used to have our bags & pockets stuffed with cell phones, mp3 players & game machines, but now they are all combined into a small & sleek Smartphone. Now you can add another thing to your Smartphone to make life easier: the contents of your wallet.

Google Wallet is a Smartphone app that allows you to organize your credit cards, rewards cards and more to make shopping simpler. This is a great step forward in the world of wireless mobile credit card processing. At this point in time, there are limitations to Google Wallet, but with its increasing popularity there’s a good chance that eventually a lot of these limitations will be things of the past.

First of all, the major limitation is that the app is only available on the Nexus S 4G by Google, and available on Sprint. There is a chip inside the Smartphone that allows you to simply tap the phone on the card reader and the payment is taken. Also, it can only be used where Mastercard PayPass is accepted. This is excellent news for any business that has credit card processing services with a terminal that accepts PayPass. When adding cards to your Google Wallet, you must have a Citi Mastercard that is eligible for PayPass, or get a Google Prepaid Card that you can load with money from other cards.

These limitations aside, Google Wallet seems to be a pretty neat product with a lot of great features. A notable feature is that it connects to Google Offers so that you can check out discounts at stores and restaurants. This allows you to save money and learn about new places. They also have “Featured Offers” from companies like Jamba Juice and American Eagle Outfitters. These offers are considered “SingleTap” and allow for rewards & offers to be redeemed, and payment to be accepted, all with a single tap!

A relatively new product, Google Wallet should have a promising future as long as its list of limitations gets shorter, rather than longer. SkyBank Financial is a strong supporter of Google Wallet.

Do you use Google Wallet? Let us know how it works for you by commenting below!

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