Google to test tap-to-pay system in San Francisco and New York

Peter Svensson The Boston Globe 05/26/2011 18:48

Google Inc. has launched its bid to dominate a world in which the smartphone replaces the wallet as the container for credit cards, coupons, and receipts.

The vision is shared by others. The Internet search and advertising company faces tough competition from cellphone companies and from Visa, which want to play a central role in tying together phones, retailers, and banks into a new payment system.

Google said yesterday that it is launching a trial of its payment system in San Francisco and New York, in cooperation with MasterCard and Citibank.

Google is opening the trial up to consumers in the summer. It then plans to expand across the country.

There has been talk of smart payment systems for years, and Google faces the same hurdles that have stifled previous trials. Initially, the new Google Wallet will work on only one smartphone, the Google Nexus S 4G, carried by Sprint Nextel Corp. It will connect only to MasterCard PayPass terminals. There are more than 135,000 of those in US stores and restaurants, but that is only a small fraction of the total number.

Google calls it a “single tap’’ solution, meaning that shoppers should be able to pay with a single tap of their phone on a payment terminal or a swipe past it.

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