Send and receive money with Gmail
support.google.com
support.google.com
But we did just (in March) launch this for Android: https://blog.google/products/gmail/send-and-request-money-in... & https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/14/you-can-now-send-and-reque...
"Wallet can't be used: This could be because Google Wallet isn't supported in your country or because you're using a business account. To see your purchases from Google Play and other products, go to the payments center."
I've unintentionally "poisoned" my personal Gmail account by adding Android Developer capabilities to it. An unexpected negative side-effect.
Google has under-designed its Account concept asserting an account is entirely for business if it's merely associated with an Android Marketplace capability.
Google should really support multiple roles for an account. At the least, caution users when adding Android Developer Marketplace capabilities to Gmail accounts about the new limitations this choice will impose.
The reason that payments systems are all either expensive or inconvenient (usually both) is that the regulatory systems that underpin the international movement of money are very complicated, and are different in each country.
Getting payments to users in the US and UK is relatively easy; you'll need a business entity in each country and you'll also need to register with the regulators in each country (e.g. as a MSB in the USA, requiring a $1m bond in some states). Note the phrase "relative"; this is not something that a couple kids from Stanford can disrupt, you need expensive lawyers and banking contacts. You can run all of that from your office in Mountain View though.
You'll also need to comply with various "know your customer" regulations; the US government will not be happy if you wire money to O. Bin Laden, or anyone else on the OFAC watchlist. And even if you're sending money to a "gmail UK" email address, you will need some way of proving that you're not sending money to countries that have sanctions/restrictions on capital flows like Iran and North Korea.
That's the easy part. If you actually try to make a serious international play, then you'll need a sizable team in each region that you want to do business in. The Eurozone is relatively easy to cover, but your regulatory requirements in South American countries will probably require one or two people per country (that's to keep your bank relationships warm, and to keep up with all of the paperwork that's required to operate a money transmitter business).
This is why Paypal charges merchant fees of 4.4% _plus forex fee_ to receive money from an arbitrary country in the world. This system is hugely complex, and very resistant to change, due to the serious consequences of making a regulatory error.
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20070515005225/en/PayP...
Would you be able to take this offline and discuss with me further? I do not know the protocol for off site discussions from hacker news. Do I give you my public key? haha LOL
[0] www.monzo.com (with whom I haveno affiliation whatsoever)
Happy to chat more offline, I've linked a public key in Keybase to my HN profile, you should be able to do the same and message me there, or just use my key to encrypt your contact details and put that on HN somewhere.
Can "EFT" an amount from any bank account to any other
If you're asking about international payments between US and EU banks, currently you do that using the SWIFT network (i.e. wires). It's $25-30 a pop. And there are significant regulatory and technical barriers to getting this cost down (see the EU's SEPA program for a regional version, and that's with a bunch of countries that have already normalized their financial regulations).
I assume this is because a number of them use "free, easy transfers between our customers" as a selling point, which would vanish quickly if it were easy to do between anybody. Sometimes it seems like we're even sliding backwards -- for example Chase used to have a fairly nice person-to-person payment system, but they recently locked it down to people with their own Chase account.
Sarah Jeong wrote about her experience with ACH fraud here, where her bank account was emptied when someone found her account and routing numbers: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/why-i-hate-securi...
It's a pain in the ass, but a long time ago an employer errantly clawed back a full month of payroll direct deposits from me instead of another employee. The bank couldn't/wouldn't help, and the company's payroll was handled by a third party who was not helpful at all.
It's not flawless, but it is insulation against ACH fraud, both electronic and forged checks/e-checks (I've been hit by both before).
It also makes it nearly impossible to use most budgeting softwares out there, aside from battle-tested Excel.
As a sidenote, some financial companies named "forex" are specialized in international payments. I use currenciesdirect.com, they don't take a commission and their exchange rate is within 2% of the Google rate. Most other banks apply a 5-10% spread as a hidden fee.
The secret is, they have a bank account in every country, so it's a local payment in US with no fee, and no fee for their bank transfer between their French bank account and yours.
Google's branding, though, is confusing and may hold this back.
There's Google Wallet, Android Pay, and now this. This is probably related to one of the previously mentioned ideas, but it isn't mentioned on the page.
They really need a more consistent brand and message if they want the general public using these things.
Oh, and they are also shutting down the somewhat related "trusted stores" program.
First, make it a mobile app as a simplified gmail with just the recipient, the amount and a memo. That's it. In version two add the pic, avatar or whatever people use.
Second, open a new wave of email accounts since all gmail accounts are already taken so people can start using their names or businesses as email accounts again. Perhaps GoMail? And start from day one with two factor authentication so squatters don't start their party.
Third, create Merchant accounts and apps so business owners can track thousands of payments a day with tools for money management.
This was my dream solution for the mobile payment need but now that Google is going to do it I'll leave it to them.
Now, imagine this mobile app used to pay a taxi driver, a street vendor, a handyman, any and all informal activities that are hard to pay by credit card. Trillions a year.
Make it simple, Google, simpler than the suits can ever think of, or I'll be forced to make it with my own bare hands. All this time I've been waiting for a giant to bring mobile payment to the masses just to see Apple fall short and nobody else stepping to the plate.
Your time to shine, Google.
Pay with your phone all your web purchases. Killer.
I guess it's a way to get more people to sign up for a Google account - you can "send to any email" - but that's not really accurate as you need a Google account to send/receive funds. It's not surprising of course, anyone technically inclined would realize this is a wrapper around:you can now place money in escrow with Google and let people know via email. Just like you could probably "send [money] via carrier pigeon" with PayPal...
I did, too. The date was the first thing I checked. Well, I guess we can email money around on our insecure devices now. So, with Apple Pay and Gmail Money, we might finally develop something along the lines of WeChat in China where many people are constantly just using mobile to pay each other.
https://support.google.com/payments/merchant/answer/75724?vi...
Unless you use a currency like bitcoin of course.