Use Google Wallet to send money to anyone via SMS
Android Police:
I believe that folks in Africa have had things like this for ages - I think that's how they do commerce with their phones. This makes more sense to me than forcing merchants to buy fancy terminals - just have people send something to the merchant's account via their phones. Now making it quick and painless is probably a challenge (we don't want people clicking on their phones for 5 minutes to buy a gallon of milk), but presumably a QR code could be scanned to enter all the necessary vendor information...
I wonder what has taken so long. Or maybe the newsworthyness of this is that you don't have to have a Google account to receive the link (but I assume Google gets a cut when you actually try to grab the cash or when it is sent. Presumably the bank gets a cut when it is added to the debit card and/or when the card is used). The original Google Commerce post says that it works if you have no e-mail, so that's a plus too, I guess.
It would be great if this replaced things like store gift cards. For years my go-to gift has been Amazon gift cards. They have a huge selection of stuff, but quite often I still think that cash would be better. I'm sure Bezos would hate it if things like this cut into his gift card business...
Cheers,
Scott.
In an upcoming update to the Google Wallet app for Android, Google will let you send money to anyone in your contacts list with a valid phone number. The new feature was announced on Google's Commerce Blog, and for now is US-only, which we have since confirmed with Google.
The new feature works by sending a secure link over SMS to the contact you select, which leads to a web page where your contact can enter their debit card details to claim the money. Google says, once transferred, funds should be available in the recipient's account "within minutes."
The new version of the Wallet app with this feature will be available in the coming days, and the Play Store listing for Wallet does show it was updated yesterday, but we've yet to get the APK for the new version. It will also be available for iOS within a similar amount of time.
I believe that folks in Africa have had things like this for ages - I think that's how they do commerce with their phones. This makes more sense to me than forcing merchants to buy fancy terminals - just have people send something to the merchant's account via their phones. Now making it quick and painless is probably a challenge (we don't want people clicking on their phones for 5 minutes to buy a gallon of milk), but presumably a QR code could be scanned to enter all the necessary vendor information...
I wonder what has taken so long. Or maybe the newsworthyness of this is that you don't have to have a Google account to receive the link (but I assume Google gets a cut when you actually try to grab the cash or when it is sent. Presumably the bank gets a cut when it is added to the debit card and/or when the card is used). The original Google Commerce post says that it works if you have no e-mail, so that's a plus too, I guess.
It would be great if this replaced things like store gift cards. For years my go-to gift has been Amazon gift cards. They have a huge selection of stuff, but quite often I still think that cash would be better. I'm sure Bezos would hate it if things like this cut into his gift card business...
Cheers,
Scott.
