It was announced this week that Google acquired Zetawire, a Toronto-based mobile payments-focused startup, in August. This is important and revealing news for anyone trying to understand the long-term mobile strategy for the Silicon Valley search engine behemoth. It’s widely known that the latest version of the Google Android mobile OS, known as 2.3 or “Gingerbread”, has been designed to include the functionality of a digital wallet for users to store value; Zetawire is a natural augmentation to the digital wallet because they bring vital pieces like NFC (Near Field Communication) and payments transactions into the fold. There isn’t a great deal of information available on the startup in question, but we do know that they had several very important patents around mobile banking, identity management and credit card/mobile coupon transaction processing – all of which points directly to the idea that Google is attempting to turn smartphones running on their OS into virtual, digital wallets. With Google now officially stepping into the mobile payments and LBS space, retailers need to keep an eye on ways to enhance their business by incentivizing and engaging customers in/around their stores via Android smartphones.
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