Google said it has partnered with Citibank, MasterCard, Sprint and First Data for the digital wallet, which comes into immediate tests in San Francisco and New York, followed by a wider geographical spread of this summer. The executives stressed that the book is a first step in helping to boost the NFC technology and helping create an ecosystem that can build off of this platform.
The effort is limited at first because there is only one NFC Android phone model, the S Nexus, available today. And the only credit card that works is Citibank Mastercard, although Google is allowing PayPal and Google your own prepaid card that can store the payment of other accounts in the portfolio. And still have the cooperation of traders who need to buy POS hardware that can handle the MasterCard PayPass technology. Currently there are 120 thousand commercial establishments in the U.S. and 300,000 worldwide are currently able to handle the NFC Mastercard payments.
However, the move should give a strong impetus for NFC technology, which is turning a corner and as more manufacturers, operators, and other financial companies are increasing their efforts to harness technology for payments and offers. With Google now firmly supported by the technology, which can serve as an additional driver to catalyze the market.