Google looks to be stepping up efforts to release its mobile wallet for Android devices after the company begun actively recruiting for a new marketing head to lead its mobile wallet and offers division.
Google is set to release its mobile offers platform and provide consumers with location-based offers via their Android smartphone. The new “EMEA head of commerce marketing” will we be required to hire two commerce product marketing managers, expanding the division.
In November last year, Google’s then CEO Eric Schmidt announced that the search giant would roll out a new platform for Android smartphones that would allow users to swipe and pay for items using an Android device’s in-built NFC chip.
A Google mobile wallet would see the company enter a market that has yet to be fully explored, despite announcements that mobile operators and manufacturers are working of their own interpretations of a mobile payment service. As MarketingWeek reports, O2 and Everything Everywhere are already rushing to bring their own platforms to devices to become the first to launch contactless payment services in the UK.
Nokia and RIM have already stated that future handsets will be equipped with NFC technology, providing consumers with the technology to use similar services to the Google wallet.
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It is not known whether Google will partner with a major payment provider like Visa or Mastercard or seek to become an independent financial services provider, the latter requiring the company to register e-money licenses to remove the need to partner with a bank.
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