With all the talk about Venmo’s growth and recent arrangements with Visa, plus announcements about banks launching person-to-person (P2P) payment solutions through clearXchange, you may have forgotten that a little company called Google has been active in the P2P market as well. Not to be left out of the headlines, Google has been making enhancements to its Google wallet to make it easier for consumers to use. As reported in the Albany Daily Star:
After the launch of Android Pay, Google decided to turn Google Wallet into a peer-to-peer payment service that connects with your debit or bank account and allows you to send cash to anyone in the US. But now, Google is removing the limitation that required anyone who receives money to have an email address – the latest update makes it possible to send funds to a person using just their phone number.
Sending money to someone this way means that they don’t need to give out their email details or even have Google Wallet installed on their smartphone. Recipients receive a text message with a secure link, which they can access at their convenience. Clicking on it will let them enter their debit card details to claim the money, which Google says will be transferred to their bank accounts “within minutes.”
As elaborated by the search giant, the Google Wallet update will enable Android and iOS users to send money via a link through SMS. Before this, users were required to have a Google Wallet account to send and receive money via an email address
Overview by Sarah Grotta, Director, Debit Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group
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