Dude, Where's My Wallet?

Is Google the future of banking?

I have been known to praise google on their achievements with their new technology recently. First Gmail, then came the Calendar, Maps, Docs (which is now Drive), Google plus, the Chromebook, and now a mobile wallet?

That's right, Google has recently come out with their latest app. The Google Wallet.

This just like all of the other apps Google has, runs off of your Gmail account that you set up years ago. This new app allows people to not only pay for items online like paypal, but allows people to send their friends and family money... As long as they have a Gmail account.

You can add money to your "Wallet" one of three ways.

1. Credit your account with a card you have, which costs 2.9% of the transaction like it would if you used a square card reader. 
2. Link your bank account to your wallet which you can transfer money between for free. 
3. Or have somebody owe you money and send you some in an email. Yep, google is now adding an button on gmail next to the attachments button. So you can now attach an invoice to an email, and they can reply with the payment. (or in the case of my uncles, make a bet on the vikings and packers, and pay the twenty dollars over email)

This begs the question, with Google being able to do this after just launching the app, whats going to happen to it a year from now.

The Dusty Wahl's Prediction on... The Next Thing from Google Wallet 

Millions of Americans have set up direct deposit with their employers so that on midnight thursday they have their paycheck in their account and available to them.

By 2016 google will have partnered with Visa to give out cards that are attached to their Google Wallet so people can make every day purchases with it (that is if google hasnt figured out a way to pay vendors with an app). And soon after that people will be able to set up Direct Deposit with their employer going straight into their Google Wallet.

This is Google's first step into the banking industry. And being employed at a bank currently, this makes me fear for my job. 10 years from now, there will be no more tellers dealing with customer complaints and overdraft fees. People will be yelling and screaming over google hangouts with their local banker in Silicon Valley.

So the moral of the day is...

Keep an eye on your money, because Google is coming for it.

http://www.google.com/wallet/