This lets customers redeem vouchers, loyalty card points and make payments with a single tap of the phone. Google will initially focus its marketing and sales efforts on New York and San Francisco, where it would be working with shops to implement its 'SingleTap' process. Most cabs in New York have readers, as do Bloomingdales department store, McDonalds, 7-Eleven, Best Buy, Foot Locker, BP, and in the UK Tesco, Boots and Burker King have signed up. Google can also disable the Wallet function remotely. Transactions require a PIN and that the phone's screen is turned on, so payments cannot be taken covertly. The technology can be used at any of the 300,000 shops and other outlets in the US and internationally that accept MasterCard PayPass.

The company is working towards a European launch in 2012, and hoping the UK will be its first location outside America.

The service will be marketed in the United States only, although the pre-paid card will work internationally at launch. This is still just the beginning, and while we're excited about this first step, we look forward to bringing Google Wallet to more phones in the future.' He said: 'Our goal is to make it possible for you to add all of your payment cards to Google Wallet, so you can say goodbye to even the biggest traditional wallets. Osama Bedier, vice president of Google payments, announced the launch on the Google blog. Google has also announced that it is working with Visa, American Express and Discover cards to make them available on future versions of Google Wallet. Customers will have to sign up for a Citi MasterCard account or get a Google Prepaid Card. The technology has been on trial in New York and San Francisco since May with around 1000 employees of Google and its partners in the venture, including MasterCard and Macy's department store.Īny customers of the Sprint network with a Nexus S phone, which runs on Google's Android operating system, will now be able to download the application so that they can use their phones to make payments.

Google wallet sign in