Google reportedly introducing refreshed Wallet strategy at Google I/O 2015
There’s no secret Google Wallet has become a bit of an afterthought after the introduction of Apple Pay and Google’s lack of movement to get their payment platform out to more retailers. But that doesn’t mean Google’s willing to just lay down and let their rival in Cupertino take over.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google is rethinking their mobile payments strategy and will look to reintroduce the next phase of their payment platform at Google I/O. The specifics are light for the time being, but it’s said Google will look to provide great incentive to carriers, retailers and banks to get on board by using tactics such as increasing their share of profits.
And even if that isn’t enough, it’d be hard for a good deal of them to turn Google away when they welcomed Apple Pay — which uses the same technology as Google Wallet for wireless payments — with open arms, exclusivity deals aside.
The New Google Wallet will apparently be more than just a “tap and pay” app, though, with Google looking to launch an entirely new payments platform based on it. We’d already seen great evidence of those aspirations in the current Google Wallet implementation, but it sounds like Google essentially wants to become the true middleman that everyone’s been looking for.
Whatever the case may be, we’re glad Google hasn’t given up on their trek to push wireless payments forward even if Apple came in to steal all their thunder with one fell swoop. Google I/O should be quite interesting this summer, for sure.