PayPal is known as “the world’s most loved way to pay and get paid”… but pretty soon it may not be the only way. PayPal pretty much has the market cornered when it comes to buying and selling online, but there are some problems with it. First off, PayPal requires you to have an account. Users of other applications, such as Venmo, must have an account and download a mobile application to be able to send money.
Enter: Google, who has decided to allow users to send money via Gmail. Whether you aim to send money to a friend or conduct a business transaction, this has thepotential to drastically change the way we send and receive money online. Similar to PayPal, users will be able to link their bank accounts to Google Wallet will be able to receive payments for free, while having to pay a 2.9% transaction fee when sending money from a debit or credit card. This is a bit different from PayPal, as the transaction fee has to do more with what type of payment it is (a gift or a payment for goods), rather than the method you are using to pay.
Either way, there are more people on Gmail than any other e-mail provider globally, and there seems to be a huge market for them. The thing about PayPal is that it seems a lot of people don’t know how to use it. With this new Gmail payment system, users will be able to attach their money in an e-mail the same way they would attach a photo, video, or any other document. As the article says, “this could help give mobile payments the push they’ve needed to go from being a novelty item to part of our everyday lives.”
Google Wallet announced, two years ago, that they were not able to implement Near Field Communication Technology. They could have given up, but the company is always looking for continuous improvement. This incremental improvement could lead to something bigger one day that could change the way we pay for goods. The change from NFC Technology to this PayPal “copycat” can be compared to the activity we did in class where we were being timed to pass around the ball. After going over the time limit, we glanced at more successful groups, took some of their ideas, and added them to ours until we beat the time. It’s kind of similar to what Google is doing here.
This new system hasn’t come without criticism, though. An Australian professor has called the payment system “dangerous”, citing the fact that hackers target Android systems, making the Gmail payment system vulnerable to their attack. He says that their password protection is not enough, and a two-factor authentication system would need to be implemented (theaustralian.com.au) People’s emails are hacked all the time, so I absolutely see his point.
Do you think Google can compete with PayPal? How susceptible do you think this system will be to hackers?
Sources: http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2013/05/16/google-to-allow-gmail-users-to-send-money-via-email/
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/internet-expert-brands-gmail-payments-as-dangerous/story-e6frgakx-1226645045676
I think this is Google trying to take a step in another market they may or may not succeed in. Google is an innovator, but of email and search engines, so it is unsure to know whether or not they will succeed in this market. I have seen emails get hacked all the time. I have plenty of friends who send me spam emails, so it is a scary thought to think that hackers will have access to people’s finances. However, people can be big fans of Google, and be willing to try it out. This is something I will keep an open eye on.
Well, there you go, Google and their crazy innovative ideas. I agree that Google is an innovator and is always keeping up with the latest trends, but I just don’t understand why they want to compete with PayPal. Google is such a successful search engine, why implement on offering other services that can allow damage to the name. I heard of so many companies that try to steer away from their original plan to compete with a different industry or service and end up hurting their reputation by doing it. Now, since Google is so well known and trusted, this might catch a lot of attention especially to people that do most of their shopping online, and on top of that use Google to search for the products. I personally will not feel safe with having sensitive information such as finances in my email, due to hackers and spam e-mails received on a daily basis. But I do believe that since we are in the information age and technology pretty much run our lives, we will have to adapt to new services and new ways of handling online transactions.
I really enjoyed reading this blog. I am a huge fan of Google and everything they create. I agree with the comments above that Google is an innovator. They are always trying to create something new and make it the best. I think they could eventually compete with Paypal because G-mail is the most popular e-mail provider globally as you stated in the blog. It makes a lot easier for people to send money to family or friends. It makes the transaction a lot easier for all parties involved. I think that hackers are always trying to find ways to steal money from people. Google will find a way to deal with hackers. Google has intelligent people working with them that can stop people from stealing money. Overall, I am excited to see how well this works out for Google. In my opinion, they are trying to take over the world with all crazy ideas they have.
I personally am not a fan of PayPal, and I think Google has a great idea here. Why let PayPal be a monopoly of the online payment world? I’m sure that Google will make the new payment system safe…they wouldn’t implement a system where people’s identities and financials are easily stolen. Google is already one of the top companies in the technology world, and I don’t see why they should not continue to expand to other markets, especially if that means competing and lowering prices for users like us.
This post made me think about hackers and how they are knowledgeable computer users. Hackers have varying motives, so they might have motives to steal Gmail users’ money from checking, savings, or credit cards. I do not think that Google will compete with PayPal. PayPal is one of the biggest providers of sending and receiving money. I use PayPal and do not have any problems with it. However, if users will be able to send money using their regular Gmail account that would scare me. I need to have a separate account only for sending and receiving money. It would be very dangerous for people to use their Gmail account for this kind of transaction. There are many spam in email systems, so having personal accounts numbers stored in your email, would be not a great idea. Very interesting post. We see how Google Wallet takes the market.
I really do believe Google Wallet could succeed and surpass PayPal. I have been a PayPal user for over 6 years and I’ve probably used it about 10 times. I agree with the author that it can be difficult to manage. I’ve experienced some difficulties with PayPal, but I fully understand it now and I enjoy using it when I need to but I believe Google’s concept is way easier to operate. The idea is similar when you want to send cash to someone from your bank account to their bank account. I have done this through my chase account through email and it’s very secure. I understand we can have worries with emails getting hacked but if the process is similar to transfer cash from bank account through email then I don’t see why Google couldn’t do the same and perfect it. I don’t believe it should be as simple as just emailing because that has a huge potential for hackers, but I believe you should have some secure bank account associated with Google Wallet which makes it easy to transfer money. Very interesting! I look forward to seeing Google’s success in this.
This post really interested me because over the past couple of years I have become a big fan of online payments. I’m so over all the paperwork to send out payments/transfers. I think it is a great idea for Google to jump into this concept because they have such a huge market. The security issue with Google Wallet does concern me, but I believe that they could find ways to over come this and make it secure for people to use.