Right now, I owe my best friend $25 for a They Might Be Giants concert ticket and $27 for a Magic the Gathering pre-release tournament, my boyfriend $40 because I had to order a new debit card and destroy my old one after someone used it to spend $500 at Walmart.com, and my mom $300 because I’m unemployed and broke and she worries about me. Lucky girl that I am, pretty soon I can pay them all back by sending an email or, more accurately, a Gmail.
Google Wallet has always allowed users to store payment information such as debit cards, credit cards, and shipping information, and then use their Google account or the Google Wallet mobile app to complete transactions. This now includes the ability to send money through Gmail. Gmail users who have also signed up for Google Wallet can send funds to contacts, whether they have a Gmail account or not, by selecting the $ icon from the attachments bar at the bottom of an email.
Sending money using a bank account linked directly to Google Wallet or using a Google Wallet stored balance is free, but using a credit or debit card incurs a 2.9 percent fee for each transaction. While transactions using a credit card, debit card, or Google Wallet balance happen almost immediately, those involving a linked bank account may take as long as 10 days.
Right now, sending money via Gmail is only possible on a desktop or laptop computer. Everyone else will have to repay their friends and family the old-fashioned way by cash, check, or just hoping that everyone forgets. You can, however, send money from your phone or tablet at the Google Wallet website, or Android users can sending money through Google Wallet by tapping their phone at Tap and Pay or Google Single-Tap locations when checking out. Also, online retailers can make Google Wallet a payment option, with a one-click Google Wallet button similar to PayPal at checkout.
Google Wallet includes purchase protection, which covers the full total of unauthorized purchases reported within 180 days of the fraudulent purchase, and also includes 24/7 purchase monitoring. Although, the site is unclear about what it’ll do if something that looks suspicious crops up. For users with the Google Wallet app on their phone, Google offers another layer of protection by allowing users to remotely disable the Google Wallet phone app from the Google Wallet website. The phone app also requires would-be purchasers to enter a four-digit PIN before completing a purchase.
As interesting as the Google Wallet services initially appear, Google isn’t actually breaking a whole lot of new ground with this service. Square already allows customers to pay using a phone app at participating retailers and is available for both Androids and iPhones. PayPal has comfortably dominated other online payment services since its acquisition by eBay back in 2008. It’s difficult to picture online retailers who don’t use PayPal opting to use Google Wallet instead and even more difficult to imagine any merchants switching away from PayPal, though the two could be offered in tandem, leaving the choice to the customer. Square, though it has taken off with many small local businesses, doesn’t quite have the strong foothold on in-store payments from mobile devices that PayPal holds in the online realm. Here, Google has made the wise decision of launching their new service with a number of high-profile businesses ready to use the Google Wallet app in their stores. These partners, who offer Tap and Pay or Google Single-Tap “at select locations” include OfficeMax, Banana Republic, Macy’s, Jamba Juice, Old Navy, and a handful of others.
Though some of the services offered by Google Wallet only rehash already established online and mobile checkout options, it’s exciting to think that someday soon, in a future where you can repay your friends with a quick email, there will be a better way to split a restaurant check than handing that poor waitress seven different debit cards and a handful of cash.
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