Google Wallet leak shows off new physical credit cards | Hacker News Reader

Google Wallet leak shows off new physical credit cards

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46 pointschapel43 comments

Huh. So I'll have one credit card to carry around that will just pass through the charge to another card I'm carrying around, because none of this stuff is yet reliable enough to abandon my wallet entirely.

Sorry for the abrasive skepticism here... it's part of being in the industry. But I see one of two scenarios playing out here:

1) Google becomes (buys/owns/works with/...) a proper Issuing Bank giving out real lines of credit for a credit card. They get interchange fees when you use your card, just like any other card issuer. No real value is added to the equation, and it's yet another service that Google offers which becomes a nightmare if you need to speak with a human - which when you're dealing with people's money is quite often. They may have a decently searchable web UI for your transaction history, but so does Mint.

2) Google does some clever magic where they authorize one of your cards on file when you swipe your Wallet card, and just pass through the result. Because they still need to act as an issuing bank here, they either raise interchange over the real issuing bank of the actual card (store owner gets screwed), or charge the same or less and eat the loss. Presumably they'll make up this way by creepily using your purchase history.

Neither of these scenarios does anything to move retailers closer to NFC adoption (actually useful for Google/Android), and I'm not sure how many people are willing to have some "one card to rule them all" thing going on, which is the only real benefit I see to the consumer here.

Having my wallet 3mm thinner isn't enough benefit for me to not pick the best rewards card based on where I'm shopping, never mind the fact that I don't trust Google with my financial data (or, more accurately, I don't see any benefit in giving them access to it)

I got the impression this is a lot like that iPhone writeable card -- i.e., you load in all your cards and then you can choose which card your Google Card represents. Lets you ditch all your cards and Google gets you to use wallet (which means they can push you in to using it as an actual payment wallet). And by getting you using Google Wallet, it'll encourage NFC adoption.

That uses a mounted magstripe writer, doesn't it? Or does the card have some sort of integrated rewriting electronics? I can't find any technical specifications.

It seems more likely the card will act like a prepaid 'passthrough' card as in the existing system.

This is basically exactly what Google Wallet does as of a week or two ago..

>So I'll have one credit card to carry around that will just pass through the charge to another card I'm carrying around, because none of this stuff is yet reliable enough to abandon my wallet entirely.

Or maybe it has to do with a completely backward aged industry that uses an insecure standard? There are NFC readers all over here and they're all disabled because the implementation on plastic cards is shit and insecure so they turn the whole reader off. This prohibits something like the Nexus 4 from being able to auth payments which could easily be done in a manner far more secure.

The sad thing is, Google is so far ahead that no one else is close enough to be compatible so this is the shim they have to implement.

This comment is so incredibly pessimistic, I'd hate to have this attitude towards something new that is challenged by virtue of its newness.

Having written code to interface with the IBM mainframes that power the credit networks... yes, I'm pessimistic about this. I absolutely welcome any improvement in the payment card space (especially around authentication and security in general) but so long as they're going over the existing networks at any point, that's going to be the weak link in the chain.

Simply put, it's a really bad chicken-and-egg problem. But offering a traditional payment card to bridge the gap does nothing to improve retailer adoption of the necessary tech to really move things forward.

Unless google is going to provide (and replace) that hardware, it's unlikely to happen. And if they do, they basically have to declare war on Visa et al due to the PCI requirements around POS hardware - they're not going to certify hardware that can be used to eventually bypass them, and merchants won't risk using uncertified hardware because they'll get shut off by their acquiring bank.

>Unless google is going to provide (and replace) that hardware

Mm, I had thought about the same thing. They could too, they could have some secure NFC smartcard and a contactful NFC card and use PKI and on and on, if you work in this area I'm sure my ideas pale in comparison to what you work with or can imagine.

I think they have to declare war on VISA. VISA doesn't seem to really give a shit to bother improving and it's probably in their best interest to keep everyone hooked on their physical infrastructure. If your phone becomes the focal point of the POS system, then I would imagine payment processor competition would be encouraged. I'm more or less just yammering now though, sorry.

I've found that NFC adoption is way better in Toronto and Waterloo (in Canada) than it is in San Francisco; partly due to a banks forcing a transition to chip-and-pin credit cards. (IIRC, they couple this with changes to their liability in their ToS; if you give out your PIN or similar, you're screwed.)

I wonder how flexible you are in deciding what card you want their physical card to charge to? Do you log in and toggle the current card it's a proxy for? Or can you log in later that night and tell google wallet "charge that latte on the mastercard, charge that toy on the amex?". I'd be really excited if I could get one google card to replace some other cards, but one of the reasons I have multiple cards is to separate personal activity from my small business activity. It'd be really important for me to have those separate.

I would love some simple conditional programmability. One of my cards gets 5% back on a rotating set of categories. This month is gas and groceries. Another card gets 3% back year-round. A simple filter would be awesome.

If they take any cues from voice, you should get your wish as far as simple filters. Of course, it would be great if you could script your payments in a way that really optimized your credit and rewards.

A bit off topic, but if you are interested in maximizing rewards, check out http://www.walla.by/ (I have no connection).

From my understanding of the EMV payment specification (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMV) a card can actually have multiple applications and when used at a compliant terminal, you are prompted to select the payment application. In other words, a EMV compliant terminal should prompt you to select which card you want the charge to go to. Of course this isn't a terminal behavior you typically see because pretty much any card you get issued by the bank will only have the one payment app. In my own testing though, I've come across cards with more than one.

Maybe you're from Europe because I think you're talking about stuff that isn't even close to existing in the US.

The US has been extremely slow to adopt this technology despite, the adoption rates around the world. Visa and MasterCard have set a date of 2015 to push merchants to have their checkout terminals be EMV compliant or face higher fraud liability charges.

So the recent change to Google Wallet to let you use any card you wanted basically worked by creating a virtual credit card that acted as a proxy, and transmitting that card number using NFC. When the charge hit that virtual card, they would then process a corresponding charge to your real card.

It looks like they're going to give you the option of getting a physical representation of that proxy card.

One thing I'm curious about though is how chargebacks get handled with this system. Say I have the proxy card pointing at my Amex, I go buy something, and Google forwarded the charge to my Amex. Now for whatever reason I need to do a chargeback. Who do I talk to, Google, or Amex? How would that even work?

Does Google forward the charge to Amex, or does the Google Wallet Apps just simulate the Amex card's NFC signal, so that the merchant can't tell the difference? If the latter, you obviously deal with Amex

Google had a partnership with Citi, so if you had a Citi card, it would actually send the real card number. With any other bank, the proxy card number is sent, and Google forwards the charge to the real card.

The former. If you use the Google Wallet app on the phone, it almost always shows up as the proxy MasterCard now.

This has ramifications for rewards programs: http://support.google.com/wallet/bin/answer.py?hl=en&top...

Google creates a onetime virtual card number that it sends to the merchant and that the merchant can process. The onetime card number never changes for that transaction, so a chargeback and return can always be processed for that order. I'm sure Google plays a part in the chargeback process due to the fact it acquired TxVia in April.

http://support.google.com/wallet/bin/answer.py?hl=en&ans...

In regards to reward points- This article also mentions "Certain transactions may not earn your typical rewards or be eligible for certain benefits. Learn more about rewards. Please contact the seller with any questions about your order."

Most people seem to use their credit cards to pay for things instead of their debit cards to get reward points. This will definitely discourage people.

I don't think that's accurate as of a week or two ago.

Er, actually, I think that's just for online purchases. Google Wallet in the past has used a Masterpaid prepaid card for NFC transactions and my understanding was that the recent update causes a more direct credit card emulation as it will allow to use any sort of VISA/whatever.

Source with more images: http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/11/01/introducing-the-phys...

A way for Google to add value would be to distribute transactions efficiently/optimally among my existing accounts. If they know the terms, promotions and limits on my various cards and bank accounts then they can figure out that a particular transaction is most advantageous to me if it goes against Card A since it gets me a lower rate or a cash back or I have more head-room. Looking at transactions over time Google can predict and optimize how my spending gets allocated. I think I'd like that if it was done well.

Glad to hear I can just carry one reward card instead of card for every grocery store I visit. Glad to hear Ill be able to use google for person to person payments instead of paypal. Perhaps they will even get the same functionality as the bitinstant card.

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/08/20/bitinstant-may-brid...

I'd use this and like it much more than the digital wallet.

The idea of my phone dying and leaving me with no means of communication and no means of payment sounds like a good way to make a bad day go to much worse.

As someone who travels frequently on business and is in places where I dont know a soul and arrive at sometimes odd hours - that scenario is terrifying to me.

Some banks have protection for this. As long as you can get to a phone you then ring the bank who will issue you with a pin you take to an ATM. This will give you access to emergency fund while they courier you a new card.

I would like to see Wallet Card act as a wrapper of all my cards and automatically figure out best card to use to charge ultimately based on balances, reward points and may be split charges between cards if required. But with this change in Google Wallet, NFC adoption among merchants will become even harder.

The card will likely be reprogrammable using NFC to 'become' whichever card you choose. Several large banks have had this in the works for a while, but it seems like Google will beat them to it.

It would be nice if it could generate a new number for each transaction.

Wasn't the (future) physical card one of the things that they went on about when Google Wallet was initially launched?

Note to Google: If the world hears about your new secure payment system via a LEAK you're off to pretty bad start.

Oh please, is Apple any less secure because we're able to get the parts of an iPhone months before it's announced?

> implies they're trying to hide it.

I hope you are joking

Uh, what? They have engineers architecting their payment system's security.

The screenshots are handled by possible interns, staff, anyone associated with the project, etc.

There's no reason why a leak would have anything to do with system security. That's absurd.

I thought google wallet was supposed to replace the cards I carry, not adding another one to it.

In this scenario. You leave all your cards at home and carry the Google Wallet card. Every retailer does not have NFC.

Looks like google wallet is a not-so-well-liked app:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...

Seems like they deployed a version that broke the app on Nexus S.

The remaining one stars are users complaining about lack of support on various android phones.

So looks like people are really interested in using it but can't get proper access to it, those than can do like it,

So:

1) A software update can now render you unable to make payments.

2) You're only able to pay people if you've bought one of a few specific pieces of hardware.

Traditional payment cards suffer neither of these problems which is probably why Google's planning to offer this... but overall it sounds like this is just adding more complexity into the already mindlessly-complex payments infrastructure.

So we know who the anti-Google-at-all-costs is in this particular thread. Why don't you stop spreading misinformation about it when you clearly don't understand the current Wallet offering or the vision for it?

I'm not anti-Google, I just don't see how their product adds value to the equation in any payment scenario. I use and like a lot of their offerings. But I'm in the payments industry, know what can and does go wrong, and would never touch an offering from a company notorious for being so hard to get in touch with (unless you're giving them tens of thousands of dollars in Adwords revenue; even with our paid apps accounts I have no idea how to get the support we pay for)

>would never touch an offering from a company notorious for being so hard to get in touch with

I find that to be a very reasonable cause of concern.

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