Card issuers add support for Google Wallet

Barclaycard US, Green Dot, and Silicon Valley Bank as well as six credit unions have joined Discover in adding support for the NFC mobile wallet.

Barclaycard offers 'Save to Google Wallet'
BARCLAYCARD: Cardholders can add their card to Google Wallet online. Click to enlarge.

A number of card issuers have announced their support for Google Wallet, using the “Save to Wallet” API released in June.

The API is designed to make it easy for cardholders to add cards to Google Wallet and provide a simple “click-to-add” process that can be made available to cardholders via a card issuer’s website, their Google account online or the Google Wallet app on their Android NFC phone.

Discover announced last month that its cardholders could add their cards to Google Wallet using the Save to Wallet API and it has now been joined by Barclaycard US as well as, in a lesser implementation, six credit unions.

Barclaycard US has now agreed to begin offering Google Wallet to holders of its LL Bean and US Airways co-branded cards. Additional programs will be enabled “in the future”, the card issuer says.

Barclaycard will “encourage cardholders to save their card to Google Wallet through a simple and secure click-to-add process and select it as their default payment choice. Once signed up, Barclaycard cardholders will see a full-color image of their card as a Google Wallet payment option – promoting usage and confidence about which payment account is being used.”

“We’re excited to put this new mobile capability – to search, shop and buy – into the hands of consumers,” says Dekkers Davidson, head of mobile commerce for Barclaycard US. “Google Wallet is a compelling solution for consumers that makes doing business faster and more rewarding and will make the experience with Barclaycard even more simple and easy to use.”

Green Dot, Silicon Valley Bank and the six credit unions, who are all members of credit union service organisation PSCU, are taking a less complex approach to participating in Google Wallet, meanwhile. Arkansas Federal Credit Union, BCU, CFE Federal Credit Union, GTE Financial, TruMark Financial Credit Union and Vantage Credit Union are using the card art option available through the Save to Wallet API, rather than actually provisioning their cards onto handsets.

Here, transactions are conducted using the new proxy MasterCard, announced as part of Google Wallet 2.0 last month, and passed through to the cardholder’s choice of funding instrument. Using card art acts as a reminder to the consumer of their payment options rather than being a direct payment option itself.

“When cardholders of the six participating PSCU credit unions add their cards to Google Wallet they will see an actual image of their credit union’s card,” says PSCU. “This brand reinforcement is key to helping credit unions own their share of the mobile channel.”

“Card art is an important representation of your bank’s brand, and by adding your card art to Google Wallet, you help Wallet users recognize their cards,” says Google.

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