Google Wallet on Wednesday issued a major update to its mobile payments platform. Google announced that the credit platform is now accepting cards from all major debit and credit card company’s including Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express.
Google has already setup nationwide partnerships with twenty-five national US retailers and thanks to its partnership with MasterCard PayPass the Google Wallet system now serves more than 200,000 retail locations in the United states.
The biggest challenge now will be to expand NFC technology for the Google Wallet program. Currently only a handful of devices carry NFC technology including the Google Nexus 7 tablet, Samsung Galaxy S III, Samsung Galaxy Nexus, LG Viper, LG Optimus, and the HTC EVO 4G.
With announcing the programs expansion Google also revealed a new layer of security which allows users to disable Google Wallet remotely when a device is lost or stolen.
To expand the program Google has begun to offer free enrollment for banks who are not currently included in the Google Wallet system. Google is also provided the company’s new banks with an integration turn around time of just a few short weeks.
Google Wallet is not the only player in the mobile payments arena, Paypal recently began working with retailers around the country including home improvement company Home Depot. Also planning smartphone offerings of their own are MasterCard and Deutsche Telekom which will release systems in Germany and Poland before the end of 2012.
Here’s a quick look at the Google Wallet platform in action:
[iframe src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/VuFVsaFCzsw” width=”560″ height=”315″]
My favorite mobile payment platform? The often used Starbucks app on my iPhone 4.
