Google buys a specialist in contactless payments
- Aside from the launching of Google's new NFC compatible Android Smartphone, Nexus S, the company announced the purchase of Zetawire in August 2010.
- This Canadian company specialised in mobile payment should then work on a secure data transfer technology and join in the Google Mobile team.
- Zetawire notably patented a system which gathers payment function, advertising messages reception and an identity manager. Google could then encourage purchases by sending geolocated reduction coupons to the Internet surfer as he enters the affiliated stores.
- As its first mobile phone was not very popular, Google hopes that new technologies, including the adoption of NFC features, will help them improve their Android terminals sales figures. They also challenge Apple, RIM and Nokia, which would like to equip their smartphones with NFC functionalities starting in 2011.
- Google, just like Visa and FidelityDevice, wishes to propose new added value services to merchants through mobile promotional or customer loyalty programs. In this way, they could create an acceptance network in a market where acquisition is today mostly dominated by Visa and MasterCard.