Monday, September 19, 2011

Launching Google Wallet on Sprint and Working with Visa, American Express and Discover

(cross-posted on Official Google Blog and Google Commerce Blog)

In May we announced Google Wallet—an app that makes your phone your wallet—with Citi, MasterCard, Sprint and First Data. With Google Wallet, you can tap, pay and save using your phone and near field communication (NFC).

We’ve been testing it extensively, and today we’re releasing the first version of the app to Sprint. That means we’re beginning to roll out Google Wallet to all Sprint Nexus S 4G phones through an over-the-air update—just look for the “Wallet” app. Here’s a demo of Google Wallet in action:



Google Wallet enables you to pay with your Citi MasterCard credit card and the Google Prepaid Card, which can be funded with any of your existing plastic credit cards. As a thanks to early adopters, we’re adding a $10 free bonus to the Google Prepaid Card if you set it up in Google Wallet before the end of the year.

When we announced Google Wallet, we pledged a commitment to an open commerce ecosystem. We appreciate Citi and MasterCard for being our launch partners. And today, Visa, Discover and American Express have made available their NFC specifications that could enable their cards to be added to future versions of Google Wallet.

Our goal is to make it possible for you to add all of your payment cards to Google Wallet, so you can say goodbye to even the biggest traditional wallets. In fact, we’ve got a video of our first customer, someone who is ready to replace his famously over-stuffed wallet. We hope Google Wallet gives him “serenity now.”

This is still just the beginning and while we’re excited about this first step, we look forward to bringing Google Wallet to more phones in the future. You can learn more about Google Wallet at google.com/wallet.

12 comments:

  1. This is very exciting - congratulations!

    Wondering if there are plans to roll-out to the original Nexus S on T-Mobile? NFC is the reason I got the phone and it's a bit upsetting that Google Wallet is only available to the 4G Nexus :(

    ReplyDelete
  2. The title says "...Working with Visa, American Express and Discover" but the text only says "...Visa, Discover and American Express have made available their NFC specifications that could enable their cards to be added to future versions of Google Wallet".

    Why such a vague statement and not mentioning the agreement with Visa?

    ReplyDelete
  3. @Adam I imagine the reason for that is that just because an app conforms to the API doesn't mean it'll be approved by the payment processor for actual use.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I believe when they say "working with Visa, American Express and Discover" they literally mean that they're working with them to bring them to Google Wallet.

    Is there any word on when/if this will be rolled out to other countries? Specifically, will it ever be something independent of your phone carrier? I'd hate to be tied to a carrier because my credit/debit card is tied to them.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Every app lover is just waiting for this - which make our phone a wallet

    Looking forward for its launch

    ReplyDelete
  6. Comes a new change in our lives, thanks to Google.
    Good job.

    ReplyDelete
  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  8. This is very exciting! Congrats!

    Is there a hardware limitation that's keeping Google Wallet from other Nexus S phones, or is it just a matter of staging the roll out? Or, perhaps, does it have to do with the other American carriers going their own way with ISIS?

    I'm a Nexus S owner on Mobilicity in Canada, and I really hope you'll look to expand the new service (and support your handset) internationally. I also know that Mobilicity is ready and willing to support it here (see http://bit.ly/ne04kB).

    ReplyDelete
  9. I was wondering what happened to Mastercard and other phones - I would love to be able to use this.

    ReplyDelete
  10. really eciting ..... i will try this

    ReplyDelete
  11. geez, me always envy when Google launched something new like Google Wallet. any idea when this feature come to indonesia ?

    ReplyDelete
  12. Is it possible that I can not add prepaid card because I have faulty IMEI? Two months ago I've flashed one custom ROM that changed my IMEI to something generic.

    ReplyDelete

You are welcome to contribute comments, but they should be relevant to the conversation. We reserve the right to remove off-topic remarks in the interest of keeping the conversation focused and engaging. Shameless self-promotion is well, shameless, and will get canned.