Google Mobile Payments
This is going to be huge. Moving your credit cards to your mobile phone means that my real-life wallet will shrink by about 90%.
Google announced a deal today (Wall Street Journal) with MasterCard and Citigroup for it’s Android platform. Verifone, the manufacturer of most of the retail credit card terminals is also invovled.
The tech used is called Near Field Communication (NFC). Basically, wave your phone in front of the credit card terminal, and payment can be made. Google has an advertising angle here, displaying ads to the customer at checkout.
If you think about it, they could easily add coupons, location-based deals, etc.
Apple’s upcoming iPhone 5 is also rumored to have an NFC chip installed as well.
