So what would be the alternative? If you don't use NFC what would you use? Doesn't this mean that a startup or some other organization could use the ideas here as a new and exciting business?
You would create a payment system over IP: a client app for consumers to pay, a client app for merchants to be paid and a server to handle the handshake. What's more disruptive that completely sidestepping the entrenched players who hold the keys to the POS kingdom? (read: banks, credit companies and enterprise CRM)
They have rolled out a swipe to pay trial system in New Zealand for the Rugby World Cup. Its essentially the same thing, except it uses a chip off your credit card and not one in the cell phone.
Thats going to be Googles biggest competitor to this, the fact any wallet can operate the same way, and well you still need to take your wallet with you for various reasons e.g. carrying your oyster card in London for example.
Obviously win-win for the credit companies, I doubt they care which technology takes off.
Of interest the threshold is NZD$80 per transaction without authorization, which I guess is around USD$60, and I think it works even if you have PIN authorization set up e.g. it overrides the PIN at certain terminals.
If this is the case I am sure they will have someone look into the possibility of integrating this card system in their wallet.
If the card indeed does make sense, it won't be too late to do both NFC and the card. The fundamental core of the wallet is not the NFC technology but the ecosystem that it is trying to build.
There is no if, its in public field trials ATM, at least one event had 200,000 people at it. Visa has deployed terminals at all the sporting events and to pubs around the stadiums.
What is going to be fun is near field sniffers, harvest peoples data etc... I can imagine walking through a crowd and sniffing out dozens of cards etc... the problem of course will be using the data, unless you can work out a way quickly convert small value purchases to cash...
rjd: If you are afraid of something like the Android Beam, then I would be too worried.
Any sensitive data will have at least a password level nfc security measure to prevent sniffing. It's not like you can just take your NFC enabled device and sniff devices with google wallet installed. You would require explicit permission to gain any data.
I see the GW scanners all over the place now, but know no one with a GW compatible phone. The tough part about launching a phone-based NFC payment system in the US is the damn 2-year contract lock-in. We probably won't see noticeable device saturation till late 2012 or early 2013.
