Mike Peterson
Google is working on first-party physical and virtual debit cards in what appears to be a bid to compete with Apple payment offerings like Apple Pay and Apple Card.
Since its launch in 2014, Apple Pay has become one of the most dominant mobile payment platforms in the industry. In 2019, the company launched the Apple Card, which blended physical and virtual payments. Now, it seems, Google wants to catch up.
According to TechCrunch, Google is working on a new Google Pay app initiative, including an associated checking account and physical and virtual debit cards. Leaked images provided to the publication also show off the design of the app, as well as the card itself.
Users will be able to refill the so-called "Google Card" from a connected bank account through the Google Pay app, which will be secured with a fingerprint and a PIN. That means that it won't be a direct credit card competitor to the Apple Card. Instead, it appears that the revamped Google Pay system would be more akin to the digital Apple Pay Cash card, though with a physical component.
Leaked images appear to show off a physical design that echoes the Apple Card, with a clean and minimalist aesthetic. The design isn't set in stone, however, and may be a placeholder.
The card will reportedly be offered as a co-branded card through bank partners like Citi or Stanford Federal Credit Union, TechCrunch added. Images of the physical card suggest that it'll operate on the Visa network, though Google may also support options like Mastercard.
The first signs of the Google Card surfaced in November, when the Mountain View-based company said that it was exploring "exploring" how to offer smart FCIC- and NCUA-insured checking accounts through its existing Google Pay services. Currently, Google Pay only supports online and peer-to-peer payments through a connected financial account, similar to PayPal.
It's currently unclear when Google is going to launch the revamped Google Pay app and Google card.
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32 Comments
When Apple Card was announced my (non-techie) mentor replied "let me guess, Google Card is coming".
LOL
The face of that card looks like a constellation of dots that could be scanned by a regular camera for some purpose.
Of course they are. Googles R&D department is called Apple.
Google had worked on this before Apple did.
Google had a physical debit card long before Apple Card: it was the Google Wallet card which was discontinued in 2016.
Up through 2015, the Google Wallet card had NFC, something Apple Card does not have. In this case, Apple cribbed from Google.
Of course, none of the underlying technology is new.
The Japanese have been using cellphones as NFC contactless transit passes since 2005. The Suica card can be used as payment at many stores as well.
Many technology companies' offerings are copied from others. Apple did not invent any of this. They did encourage adoption.
Hell, the NFC contactless chip isn't even theirs. It's from NXP, a Dutch semiconductor company that was spun off from Philips. The old Amex Blue cards from the late 90s-early 2000s had a Philips cryptocontroller chip embedded in the card. There was a corresponding USB card reader that you'd plug into your PC that basically acted as a form of two-factor authentication for online purchases.
In the early 2010s, most of my credit cards had NFC contactless chips but adoption in the USA was so poor that the major credit card issuing banks stop issuing these cards and by 2015, most of my cards had gone back to being dumb pieces of plastic.
The United States consumer finance market is anywhere between 10 and 20 years behind the rest of the industrialized world. It is really slowing down the speed of innovations in this area.
Other than new ways to spy on people, does Google do anything original? If Apple ever buys DuckDuckGo or decides to make their own search engine, Google is screwed.