Launching Google Wallet on Sprint and working with Visa, American Express and Discover
In May we announced Google Wallet—an app that makes your phone your wallet—with Citi, MasterCard, Sprint and First Data. With Google Wallet, you can tap, pay and save using your phone and near field communication (NFC).
Context & Ripple Effects
Google introduced its phone-based payment app in May with Citi, MasterCard, Sprint and First Data. The move from that initial Wallet announcement to a Sprint launch pairs carrier distribution with relationships spanning Visa, American Express and Discover, rather than a single payment-network arrangement.
First-order effects
- Sprint becomes the carrier launching Google Wallet, giving Google a distribution route for its NFC payment app.
- Visa, American Express and Discover join Citi and MasterCard as Google Wallet payment partners, broadening the set of networks connected to the service.
Second-order effects
- Citi and MasterCard lose any appearance of being Google Wallet's sole financial counterparts, while Visa, American Express and Discover gain a direct role in the phone-wallet rollout.
- First Data's position alongside Google, Sprint and the card networks makes payment processing a shared dependency across the carrier, wallet and card ecosystems.
Third-order effects
- If other wallets follow the same pattern, mobile payments will be organized around permission layers that aggregate carriers, payment networks and processors rather than around any one participant's customer relationship.
The trend: Mobile wallets are developing as multi-party payment layers, with carriers supplying distribution and card networks supplying payment choice.