Google deal means game over for mobile payments firm Softcard

Thursday 26th February 2015 01:08 GMT wayne 8

ISIS was a strange name before the jihadis.

Why name an electronic payment service after the Egyptian diety of fertility and magic?

Must of have been an interesting maketing session.

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1. Thursday 26th February 2015 01:22 GMT Eddy Ito
  
  Re: ISIS was a strange name before the jihadis.
  
  Perhaps something they were smoking in their hookah might tell us. It might also go a good way toward explaining why the jihadis picked a female Egyptian god as their moniker.
  
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2. Sunday 1st March 2015 14:39 GMT N13L5
  
  Greedle taking the butter off Telco's toast...
  
  ...awww
  
  Its like you got captured by Orcs, who are then slain by a Troll, which doesn't change your outlook one bit, because their plans for you are the same - roasting on a spittle till tender.
  
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Thursday 26th February 2015 07:06 GMT Steve Davies 3

Isis?

A nice place for a 'punt' on a Summer's Evening if you are around Oxford when the 'nobs' have gone home.

The 'isis' crew can also be seen battling it out with 'goldie' on the Thames.

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Thursday 26th February 2015 07:47 GMT Anonymous Coward

So what exactly did Google buy that they didn't have before?

For a couple years I kept reading about how Apple is way behind Android because it doesn't support NFC, as they claimed NFC payments was going to be a huge thing - even though almost no one who had NFC phones used it. Apple added NFC to the iPhone, made a big splash about Apple Pay and got some people using it - not a lot, but enough that they were a majority of people using NFC payments in the US within a week after the iPhone 6's release.

So Google buys a struggling company trying without success to push NFC payments, but doesn't get any of their customer data. Google already had a NFC payments infrastructure, so what did they need Softcard for? It looks like what really happened is that Google bought them to shut down them down, so Google Wallet is the only alternative for those who can't/won't use Apple Pay.

Well, until the hundreds of millions of credit/debit cards in the US are replaced with NFC versions that support EMV over the next 18 months or so. Then the question will be: Why use either Google Wallet or Apple Pay? How is it better than just using your card? Google just threw away money as far as I can tell.

As an Apple shareholder, theoretically using Apple Pay benefits me a microscopic amount, as I own about a millionth of the company and get a millionth of Apple's share of 0.15% of my transaction amount. Not quite as good as my cash back credit cards, which give me 10,000,000x more :) If I use Google Wallet I get to give them my purchase info to feed into their ad slinging machine which gets me...more ads? Yeah, not much incentive there!

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1. Thursday 26th February 2015 12:07 GMT Charlie Clark
  
  Re: So what exactly did Google buy that they didn't have before?
  
  There isn't such a thing as an NFC payments infrastructure: NFC is the infrastructure. Apple did the unusual but smart thing of adopting it as opposed to trying to replicate it with its own. Clearing still has to be through the banks.
  
  We'll have to wait to see quite what Google got but presumably includes indirect access to the network's customer base is part of it.
  
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2. Wednesday 25th May 2016 11:17 GMT Richard Jones 1
  
  Re: So what exactly did Google buy that they didn't have before?
  
  That pretty much mirrors my view on the whole saga. I have several NFC cards though I have yet to use any of them in NFC mode. They do have one huge advantage over a phone, there is no need for a battery that goes flat and several smaller advantages in that they are, well, smaller. They do one thing, make payments and I have never had a problem doing that with them. Having to pull out a phone from the safety of an inner pocket is a right palaver that would just slow things down for me. (The fact that I would first need to buy a suitable phone is a small, though undesirable complication.)
  
  However, I guess it does expand 'choice' for those who need choice to go in that direction. I just wish that choice encompassed a little more of what I would find useful so I could benefit from a more recent phone with a fresher battery, rather than one that wants a cake for its tenth birthday..
  
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Thursday 26th February 2015 08:18 GMT RyokuMas

Wow...

Skipping straight from embrace to extinguish...

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1. Thursday 26th February 2015 09:51 GMT Kristian Walsh
  
  Re: Wow...
  
  Yes, there's a strong whiff of anti-trust about this one. Google just bought a direct competitor to Wallet and shut it down.
  
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Thursday 26th February 2015 10:42 GMT bob, mon!

Marketing deal?

The way I read it is that they really bought access to T-Mobile/ATT/Verizon customers who were previously locked out of Google Wallet in favor of Softcard. You could say the phone companies were being anti-competitive themselves.

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Thursday 26th February 2015 11:47 GMT Big_Ted

"and now Apple Pay is threatening to eat everyone's lunch"

Say what ? ? ?

I have read that Apple have up to 50% of the smartphone market in the US of A. Therefore how are they going to eat the other 50% ofthe market ?

As for outside the US then Apple have much lower market share. Add to that just having the same stuff built into your credit/debit card then even more reason not to use the phone for it.

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