Google credit card – via your mobile?

Fashionista wonders whether she needs another way to max out her credit cards – however Google seems intent on making it even easier.

As reported in the Daily Telegraph, Google is moving into the mobile payments market, with Android phones being embedded with Near Field Communication (NFC) technology to enable contactless payments. The technology would enable shoppers to simply wave their mobile phone in front of an electronic reader device to make a credit card payment, as with existing contactless credit cards. The move follows the announcement of Orange’s ‘Everything, Everywhere’ contactless mobile payments using Barclaycard technology due for launch this summer, with further payment providers and operators also understood to be trialling systems for launch in the near future.

Google is not reported to be looking for a cut of the payment being processed, so readers may wonder, what’s in it for them? Well, it appears that the partnership with MasterCard and Citigroup will enable Google to collect behavioural data about mobile phone users. The combination of location data along with spending behaviour is incredibly valuable to advertisers and retailers alike, and would enable Google to serve mobile phone users with tailored adverts and discounts via bluetooth while shopping on the High Street.

This is similar to the type of bespoke online advertising which features as a result of online cookies, however it goes one step further in capturing personal data, spending behaviour and linking this to a shopper’s location. Fashionista wonders how this will be viewed by the Information Commissioner’s Office, and other European watchdogs, who have recently expressed concern over the use of behavioural advertising in the EEA, and suggests that readers watch this space…