Google Acquires Softcard and Partners with US Carriers On Mobile Payments
by Brandon Chester on February 23, 2015 4:32 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
- Softcard
- Google Wallet
Today Google has acquired the technology and IP behind Softcard. Softcard is a joint venture between AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile to support NFC based mobile payments in the United States. While Google's original post on the Google Commerce blog described it as something closer to a partnership, the statement released by Softcard confirms that Google has purchased Softcard's technology.
According to the statement released by Google, they have partnered with the three major US carriers that created the Softcard payment platform to increase the adoption and availability of Google Wallet, which is Google's mobile payment platform that launched in 2011. Under this new partnership, Android devices sold by those carriers that are running KitKat or newer will come with the Google Wallet application pre-installed.
This cooperation between Google and the US carriers is a surprising development. In the past, the competition between Softcard and Google Wallet led to situations like Google Wallet being disabled on the Verizon Galaxy Nexus. It will be interesting to see how the expansion of mobile payments plays out with both Google and the major US carriers putting their weight behind one standard.
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peterfares - Tuesday, February 24, 2015 - link
It doesn't mean contactless but it enables it, and of the EMV terminals I've seen, the vast majority of them have contactless. Maybe some EMV terminals which were deployed at the beginning of EMV but before contactless became common don't have it, but nearly all new ones do.Murloc - Tuesday, February 24, 2015 - link
not really, it depends on whether those who give the POSes push contactless payment or not.And even if they do that, cashiers are clueless so it ends up not being used.
peterfares - Monday, February 23, 2015 - link
Thanks AT&T, Verizon, and the "UnCarrier" T-Mobile for delaying this for 4 years! That was great!Mark_gb - Tuesday, February 24, 2015 - link
Yes... sometimes you have to sit around and suffer for awhile before you realize that you just do not have the power you thought you had, and relent to working with someone you should have partnered with years ago. And AT&T, Verizon and T-mobile apparently finally reached that point. And Google showed up with enough of the almighty convencer, cash, to help move the decisionlmcd - Monday, February 23, 2015 - link
They better not kill the WP app. We actually got a WP app but with Google's track record...KPOM - Tuesday, February 24, 2015 - link
So the ISIS Wallet is officially a flop, and the carriers are selling out to Google. Perhaps they see Apple as a common threat and see partnering with Google Wallet (which they needlessly held down the last 4 years) as a way to keep Apple in check.BMNify - Tuesday, February 24, 2015 - link
The windows phone app will soon be killed and pulled from the app store now that Google has acquired softcard.5ark - Tuesday, February 24, 2015 - link
And now Google will kill the Windows Phone Soft Card app.