Google Wallet Coming in the Form of a Physical Card?

Google Wallet gives consumers the ability to store their credit and debit card numbers with a smartphone app and make payments at stores by tapping their phones at an NFC terminal. The concept is to make checking out easier and safer by letting people avoid carrying around a wallet full of credit cards that can too easily be lost or stolen, keeping card info securely stashed on a locked phone that can be remotely wiped, and enabling fast payments with the convenience of NFC.

Now, according to a pile of leaked screenshots, Google Wallet is taking another form: a physical card. Or, to put it more dramatically, one card to rule them all.


The Android Police received the screenshots from an anonymous tipster, and if they’re real, it means that users will be able to use Google Wallet at just about any store that takes cards; up to now, if a given merchant didn’t have an NFC terminal at the checkout, users couldn’t use Google Wallet. Because NFC terminals aren’t ubiquitous yet, people still had to keep all their cards on hand no matter what, which defeats the purpose of having Google Wallet to begin with.


The tipster also found that Google Wallet let him/her to withdraw or send money using a “Wallet Balance” account (if we can call it that).

A Google Wallet card (which looks pretty snazzy in the screenshots) could help Google wedge its foot in the door of the banking industry much further, which may be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your purview.