Coming soon: make your phone your wallet | Hacker News Reader

Coming soon: make your phone your wallet

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178 pointsUncle_Sam98 comments

I have watched a lot of these initiatives come and go but this one is the first that I think has a strong chance of success. The core elements are already integrated for full functionality and offers. With a bank and credit company on board, an existing hardware system deployed, and the ability to quickly tie it into the millions of existing Google accounts I think this just might be the tipping point. High percentage adoption by the consumer will take awhile. Lots of phone upgrades, consumer trust, and general concept awareness will take time.

Edit: I think this will be overlooked some as well. The Subway partnership is huge. They have the most fast food stores in the world (I believe they exceeded McDonalds last year). Talk about copious instant eyeball time!

Merchant adoption is also necessary. It will take a long time to convince small businesses to install these readers without some sort of subsidy.

It works on the Mastercard PayPass hardware. Adoption is already pretty far down the road on the POS side.

EDIT: Go here to search for Paypass merchants in your hood: http://www.google.com/wallet/where-it-works.html

But until it's essentially universal, that still shifts burden to the user: they have to look around and try to figure out whether this alternative payment method is accepted at this merchant. Why wouldn't they just whip out their credit card that they know is going to be accepted?

EDIT: What I mean to say is: if credit-card-swiping were particularly onerous, I could see this easily taking off. But since it's not (at all!) and people are trying to replace it with something that seems equally-if-not-more burdensome, it's hard for me to see why this would catch on outside tech folks that mostly do it for the geekfactor.

There are a few killer features that come to mind (though I'm not sure if Google is already looking at them):

- no paper receipts. Do I want my receipts? In an ideal world, of course, but in real-life that just means more paper junk. Receipts are also awfully easy to lose - making returns onerous. Imagine having an electronic receipt instead of juggling all of that paper!

- doubling up on loyalty cards and payment. Instead of swiping a loyalty card once, and then again for actual payment, a NFC transaction can potentially do both at once. This also reduces the number of cards I have to carry around dramatically. Bonus points if they can make this work with my library card (with the added bonus: if I'm late returning a book, they can just charge me).

- more fine-grained budgeting. Right now Mint knows if I spent $50 at Staples. It doesn't know what, though. An itemized electronic transaction record would tell my budgeting software that the $50 was spent on printer ink, instead of, say, a new gadget.

- immediate feedback without extensive POS modification. I've noticed some grocery store checkouts now have a secondary printer that spits out special offers to you (assuming you scan your frequent shopper card). This can be expanded upon greatly without modifying POS hardware - i.e., pushing promotions directly to your phone.

I don't know if I'm like most people in this regard, but I'll carry my phone with little issues but I'd prefer to carry as little plastic in my wallet as possible. If I had an NFC phone and this service was available where I live, I'd be removing my Paypass Mastercard from my wallet the moment I got home.

I think the problem they're approaching is having too many cards like loyalty cards and such. That's a real problem unlike swiping any card.

In terms of usability, the one-tap pay systems that are rolling out (certainly in the UK) for low value transactions (no PIN or signature required) with bank-issued debit/credit cards is a huge leap forward with respect of speed of transaction.

There are too many loyalty cards. I usually won't sign up for them unless it's for a store I go to all the time, because I don't want to carry them around. I'll carry one for the grocery store, but not places I only go to occasionally like Walgreens or Best Buy. With Google Wallet you won't need to carry them, so they won't be as much of a burden, so you can have more of them. Merchants will like this and consumers will too.

I worked for ViVOtech (one of the biggest PayPass Point of Sale vendors) back in 2003; it is always surprising to me how widely deployed the readers seem to be, and how little actual use there is, even today.

Something like this could go a long way toward adoption, but I'd be a bit concerned that RFID/NFC might be bypassed by cheap CCD/CMOS.

True that you need merchant adoption. This whole thing will take a lot of time... but the subsidies wouldn't need to be that much - NFC is a $30 add-on. They can be in a lot of places fairly quickly. http://www.fastcompany.com/1741837/wave-and-pay-nfc-credit-c...

This is big, but not because NFC will be a tremendously better way to pay for stuff. This will just act to get a high population of capable NFC devices out to the general public.

NFC will enable a whole lot of latent demand for data exchange in the mobile context. Wherever/whenever people are away from computers and need to exchange a few hundred KB or less, there will be opportunity. (Specialized instruments/readers that people read data from of, then key into another device.)

It will need to avoid the pitfalls of the previous technologies. (IR)

It will need to avoid the pitfalls of the previous technologies. (IR)

Audio, bluetooth, QR codes/camera as well.

All easily capable of data exchange between devices, all present on a vast number of phones, all hobbled by lack of implementation and standards.

Why wont NFC end up just like Bluetooth? "I don't have it switched on" "I don't have the same version" "we need to pair the devices? Mine says it cannot see any" "type in what code where?" "I can only support an NFC headset, not any data transfer protocols", etc.?

That's a useful list:

    - manual steps
        - device pairing
        - switched on/off
    - incompatibility
        - version incompatibility
        - protocol incompatibility

If they've fixed these problems, it will succeed. If not, then it will be another failed attempt. On the plus side, a lot of scientific, technical, and inventory equipment already does NFC.

I actually thought NFC would solve Bluetooth's major problem: pairing. Right now pairing a device is a pain in the ass - an endless, meandering series of menu diving, waiting, syncing, and not knowing if you're doing the right thing.

Imagine being able to touch your Bluetooth headset to the back of your phone. Or touch your phone to the "sync" patch on a Bluetooth keyboard and have it just do it?

This is a specific use case for NFC, in exactly the way you describe. NFC should be usable for pairing in Bluetooth v2.1.

They are both audio devices. They have speakers and microphones. Why can't they pair modem-style?

I don't think NFC is something that is intended for headsets. The wikipedia page says that its a collection of technologies that typically require 4cm or less distance, which would pretty much defeat the purpose of having a headset.

It's hard for me to immediately see how this benefits me enough to get excited about it [1] and I have mild anxiety over expanding my personal reliance on my battery-driven, fairly-easily-breakable phone [2].

[1] In anything but the long-term, I'm going to still have to carry a wallet, so what have I really gained? I'm not educated on the whole NFC thing, but that's my point - they'll have to really do a great job of educating people on why this is beneficial if they're gonna get Average Joe [and the store servicing him] to jump on it.

[2] Not that that's necessarily rational; but see [1].

1 You've never had a magnetic strip fail on your card? or the numbers worn off your card?

2 Just like you still have to carry cash in your wallet w/ your card?

1 You've never had a magnetic strip fail on your card? or the numbers worn off your card?

I am certain magnetic strip/smartcard failures happen far less often than flat phone batteries.

Wow. With the first release itself Google is doing many things. Not just payments but also offers, coupon redeeming etc. This is devastating for all the apps offering offers, coupons etc. The worst part (or best part for Google) about this is its all Google. Third parties could integrate NFC payments, but with the Google app doing the exact same thing and more, all the other apps are now redundant.

EDIT: Square just started pushing into the bigger retailers with a POS system. Its kind of screwed now with this too as Google offers a superior alternative and a bigger brand name to merchants.

This is BIG. It means when you leave your house you need to bring:

* Your phone.

That's it.

Your phone is now your money, a dockable laptop, and your keys. This is incredible: like living in a futuristic comic book.

You forgot:

* Your credit card, for businesses that don't have RFID smart card readers

* Cash, for businesses that don't even take credit cards

* Public transit pass, at least until those start to be supported by phone NFC software, and/or

* Driver's license or ID

Point 1 is rendered unnecessary by point 2.

Point 3 can be a reality now if you want it (http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=1379) and will be a reality for most people soon enough.

Point 4 is not actually a necessity (unless you're driving). I've tried to make a point not to carry my driver's license in my wallet (the plastic doesn't own you) except for special occasions. It can be annoying at times, but I've never had a situation where I needed my license for something unplanned (as opposed to forgetting I'd need to prove identity/age at pre-planned activities).

You must not live in NY. If you want to go to a bar, you will probably need an ID. And if you want to get on the subway, you won't be able to pay with NFC for probably many years to come.

Nope, I live in Toronto and don't use transit enough to justify a monthly pass (I just carry 2-3 tiny tokens in my pocket), and don't make unplanned outings to bars. In case of anything, I'm rarely more than half an hour away from home in any case.

I guess most people can't or won't match my case, but I just wanted to highlight that carrying ID doesn't have to be a necessity.

A lot of people today don't bother with cash, and it's not that hard a thing. Worst case, they point you to a nearby ATM.

Yeah, OK, but then I need either ATMs that support RFID smart cards (I've personally never seen one) or to carry my ATM/debit card, which is different from my credit card, although granted I could probably make do with just carrying the debit card.

Ah yes, I didn't really finish my point, that a few years ago, going cashless would really not work at all, whereas now it is generally workable with a few exceptions. Nearly all retail and dining places take cards for any amounts. I figure this kind of thing will follow the same path.

Your phone will now also be an even more powerful device for tracking your activity. I'm surprised at how relaxed everyone is about that.

This is a great point; see also http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2589331 The big thing about that article is that the tracking capabilities come from things people actually want in their devices, not from nefarious schemes to follow people around. And most people aren't going to inquire about the larger purposes to which these technologies can be put.

Funny, because the one thing I forget most often when I leave the house is my phone. I think that deep down, I'd prefer to not have one.

Next step: computers implanted into our bodies.

http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

Or on your wrist!

Isn't this common in Japan? Anyone want to chime in with their experiences there?

Yeah, there's NFC access for vending machines/convenience stores, but as already noted Japan is still very cash centric (which I find I prefer, but YMMV).

tl;dr it's here in Japan, yes, but not as "use anywhere" as you'd be led to believe. Doesn't mean it doesn't fucking rock, though.

There's almost a whole formal exchange with cash in Japan, even the way the cashier counts your change is very deliberate (didn't notice this until I saw a Japanese person do this in the US).

I've heard China also has some issues with credit cards, but has more to do with trust issues.

At least in some electronics stores you can collect loyalty points on your NFC phone, but for payments it's probably 95% cash and 5% suica / pasmo subway cards.

Japan is very cash centric when it comes to transactions, while I was there I never saw a credit card lol (2 yrs ago)

I have a Suica card sitting here on my desk. Suica is Japan Rail's refillable, tap-payment system. It's been adopted for use at convenience stores and seems to be all over the place now. Basically, anywhere likely to make small sales to commuters is extremely likely to accept Suica.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suica

The Wikipedia article mentions the VIEW card, which is a hybrid credit card and Suica.

Is it possible to have a Suica card built into the phone instead of being a separate card?

Yes, it's standard in most phones sold in Japan. Charged to your monthly phone bill.

Why does it have to be a Nexus S specifically on Sprint? I have a Nexus S via T-Mobile, with a NFC and all. Why wouldn't that work? Is it doing something special on the Sprint infrastructure?

According to the FAQ, the card is being emulated on the device's secure element. My guess is that the Google Wallet program was preloaded only on the Sprint Nexus S's secure element.

I fully expect a future version to do the security-critical stuff on a remote server, which would allow the application to work without a secure element but with a slower transaction time.

All Nexus S phones, I believe, came with the PN65 secure chip: I'm not sure what could be missing from them that's needed by Wallet.

As sern said, what could be missing is the Google Wallet software.

Regardless of how useful this idea might be, it's nice to see Google getting behind a new feature of theirs and pushing hard instead of letting it languish (like other discontinued projects, the Nexus-One-we'll-be-the-store idea, etc).

as this is only several hours old I don't think the evidence is in place to really give an informed judgment on whether it will languish or not

I'm really referring to the NFC chip in general, it's been available in the Nexus S since the phone launched in December.

The comments here seem to be overwhelmingly positive, but if I were to use this routinely doesn't it mean that not just my search information but also my financial information is available to Google to analyze and/or sell to advertisers or make available via backdoor APIs?. Google already has a lot of information about a lot of people.

Unless we start seeing regular security updates on Android - independent of manufacturer - we're going to see something that makes the Sony fiasco look laughable in comparison.

I'm curious to see what effect this has on companies like Square, who seem to have been leapfrogged a bit. But I guess since square's main offering is as a point-of-sale credit-card swiper, I suppose there is a way they can change their product offering to something that can read phones as well as take cards.

I think google might have just discovered another very large revenue stream.

Colour me gobsmacked but getting to be in the middle of the future of transactions sounds like a great thing. Getting to be in the middle, and on the advertising angle and the deals/coupon game all at once? Now I'm jealous.

Is there something that is exclusive to Google? Could this be implemented on any phone with NFC right now?

Any estimate on how [un] reliable a phone is vs a piece of plastic with a magnetic stripe?

Also - this is not clear to me - what new pieces have to rollout for this to work? New Point-of-sale machines AND new phones with NFC? COuld this interoperate with an iPAD POS app like Square?

NFC payments are not actually new in America - AmEx and Mastercard have been using it for years (that's what the little chip in AmEx Blue cards is for), so the infrastructure is largely already in place. Google's method of keeping your information in a centralized location and the idea of building it into your cellphone instead of a card is the biggest change.

The annoying thing about the chip in my AmEx is that the charge shows up as "Expresspay Blue" on my statement, instead of showing up as the merchant ("Best Buy" or what have you). This throws off my pretty charts and budgets in Mint and has resulted in me reverting to just swiping the card everywhere.

I still have a dozen or so "Expresspay Blue" charges sitting there in Mint, uncategorized, because I can't remember who I paid $12.57 to back in October (or whatever).

Minor annoyance? Absolutely. But if NFC-payment-via-phone has the same issue, you can bet money that I'll ditch it and go back to swiping my credit card.

I see a problem just with battery life. It's not unusual that I'll be out late, and my phone (Nexus One) is dead well before I've stopped paying for things with cash/CC.

In over 10 years I've only had the mag strip on one CC fail on me. Though, to be fair, my current AmEx has split in two (it's two pieces of plastic bonded together... not particularly strongly, I guess), but the card still works.

If this were to gain traction with more banks/creditors/business, it will be huge. The idea has been done before (not necessarily credit cards) but not with a name like Google. The top thought in my mind is security. I'm guessing the app will be password protected, but what other security measures are involved? Another setback is the supported devices. Google needn't be naive and only implement this in Android devices. Can't wait to see where they take the idea.

On Supported devices: i perceive that they are planning this as a long-term all-over-the-place thing, so they are probably talking to as many device manufacturers and as many banks to support this.

http://www.google.com/wallet/how-it-works-security.html

huge move for Mastercard PayPass. But only works with Nexus S now? Are there a ton of phones coming to market with NFC capability?

All Blackberry phones will have NFC soon, too, and I assume Google will push all Android manufacturers to use it.

Also FWIW, the Nokia C7 has a 'dormant' NFC chip in it.

It will be enabled in a future software update - Nokia's basically waiting for the technology to enter at least the early adoption phase. (I think that's a pity though - the C7's NFC capabilities will inevitably be drowned out by the iPhone and Android NFC-enabled handsets. Another classic example of Nokia missing the boat.)

Not really. There will be some NFC-enabled phones shipping over the next couple years, but with notable gaps. What you won't see is an NFC reader at your average (meaning not Palo Alto or Mountain View) corner pizza shop for a very long time.

This is old news in the payments world. Trial #93 (or something like that) for contactless payments.

The fact of the matter is, it's not about the handshake. It's about the infrastructure. MasterCard's infrastructure is old. That's why we need a new one, whether it uses NFC or something else (such as barcodes).

Deleted comment

Except it will be called AirPay and have a proprietary handshake?

I'm not sure why grandparent comment was deleted, I don't think it's unreasonable to say that the iPhone introducing NFC could well be a catalyst to the vast majority of handsets following the trend.

It's probably more likely to be a catalyst for vendors adopting PayPass.

Given that stalled adoption thusfar seems to have mainly been a Catch-22, these might well be the same thing.

Interesting to me that, Google mentioned they were interested in bringing game mechanics directly to the wallet app.

I certainly hope that's not true. It'd be a deal-breaker for me. I don't want to play games with my wallet. I want it to be a simple, serious and functional tool for dealing with money.

Some things should not be game-ified.

I can't wait for the iOS version of this. Integration with Square.app would be really neat, too!

With how long it took Google Voice to be accepted by Apple, I'm not too optimistic there will be one soon.

Mobile gas stations have had a touch and go payment system for a while called Speedpass. It is very slick and I use it all the time. I even go out of my way to visit Mobile gas stations to use it. I can't wait till this is everywhere

Looks like they decided to reuse the Google Wave logo; colors are even the same order.

Well, yeah, the colors are in the same order as the Google logo.

Excluding duplicates, yes.

... and the relentless quest for consumer data continues. It's a nice concept, one that has been hyped for a long time. But the trade-off is sharing/giving up even more personal data.

Is this anonymous or does the place afterwards know my phone's ID?

>> Someday, even things like boarding passes, tickets, ID and keys could be stored in Google Wallet.

I think it's called a "single point of failure". Always a "good" thing to have.

In light of the announcement, our updated mobile payments comparison chart: https://www.facecash.com/versus/

My phone already is my wallet: http://jacobbijani.com/post/4209441008

My phone and my wallet have been together for 3-4 years now (in a totally different way):

http://imgur.com/utmU6

It's nice because if the phone dies, I can still access my ID, credit cards, and bus pass. The idea of an electronic version is very nice though since it can expand to so many things without taking up more space. With this physical wallet, I just carry the bear essentials (ID, Credit/Debit Card, Insurance, Public Transit Pass)

So what's the startup idea for this?

Does anyone have an iPod cable handy? My wallet's battery is dead!

.. in the US

cool - they integrated Payments and Deals into a phone. Great.

Will anyone use this? Not anytime soon. Right now they are integrated with one phone on one network with one credit card. (Nexus S on Sprint with a Citi Mastercard). The number of people that have that is pretty small, but then they also have to use it at a vendor which supports it. Google did a great job with this, partnering with Paypass so there is an existing vendor base already http://www.google.com/wallet/where-it-works.html… that being said, it just seems too complicated at the moment, and not a huge value add. I love Paypass already, and it's not that hard for me to knock my wallet onto the device. This doesn't really make it that much better.

We're really a couple of years off from broad-based adoption of NFC. The other thing is that Apple has a huge say in adoption. Some say the iPhone 5 won't have NFC. Even if it does, there is no guarantee that Apple will support Google Wallet right off the bat (See: Google voice - yes it's supported now but still crippled and it took a LONG time).

and, even if iphone5 has nfs, it's probably unlikely that apple would support google wallet instead of creating their own solution.

Do you really see Apple creating a deals program?

They might integrate payments with iTunes account somehow, but unless they buy Square, I'm not sure they'll make a big push.

And if the iPhone 5 does have NFC, I'm sure there'll be an app for Google Wallet.

There will be a Google wallet app only if Apple allows it, which is unlikely. A more likely path is that Apple will partner with someone like Intuit (whose former CEO and current board chairman sits on Apple's board) and merge NFC in with Intuit's GoPay system. If Apple wants to do to the mobile payment industry what it did to the music industry it will partner with Intuit and offer merchants a "business ready" iPad 3 that will act as a POS terminal and hook in to something like an iOS version of quickbooks. Give away the hardware as a loss-leader for the payment service and cut a lot of middlemen out of the system.

Since Apple is already on the path to testing out iPad POS services in the Apple store they can refine the hardware/software and then roll out something that works well for both the user and the merchant.

What does it matter? They'll work with the same merchant machines, which means more merchants supporting NFS payments.

Apple uses google maps on the iPhone, there is no reason why Apple couldnt do the same with wallet.

Monopoly.

First Google came for the payment app/website, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't doing that.

Then Google came for the file sharing app/website, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't doing that.

Then Google came for the social app/website, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't doing that.

Then Google came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Maybe I'm foolish for responding to a troll but I dont understand why Google is being considered a monopoly? Its not even a bit-player yet in payments, file sharing or social. It has high (~2/3) but not not monopoly share of search in the US, and higher ~80% share of search ads.

Compared to the monopolistic positions held by Microsoft, Apple (itunes) and Facebook, hardly seems unusual.

Horrible analogy; this is hardly wholesale slaughter of human beings.

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