In an effort to kickstart the flagging Google Wallet payment offering, Google has just acquired payments technology company TxVia. TxVia specialise in offering advanced processing systems for prepaid and gift cards. Sadly we can’t tell you much more about them as Google have ripped most of the TxVia website down and replaced it with a holding page.
However it’s pretty obvious that relationships are what Google are after as to date they’ve failed to make inroads into the mobile market. Google Wallet still only works with NFC mobile handsets on the Sprint network leaving them way behind PayPal in the race for anywhere anytime payments.
Google say that they’ve “worked closely with TxVia over the last year” but the big question is will the difference between working with them and owning them boost their payments offering? What Google needs to get Google Wallet on the map is for consumers to start using it and that will only happen when it’s an easy frictionless payment process. For that to happen firstly merchants have to offer it and secondly they’ve got to figure out a way for consumers to pay offline via Google Wallet. Currently they’re not even winning online which would at least get consumers to open accounts. To win offline they’re not only up against PayPal but also the incumbents such as Visa and Mastercard.
Maybe TxVia’s relationships and some 100 million accounts will give Google Wallet the boost it needs. Time will tell, but they need to start moving fast or they’ll be left even further behind in the payments race.
