Google I/O: Wallet Revival Incoming

Google Wallet has been a failure in terms of user and retail adoption, but it is not all the fault of Google. The service is only available in the United States, and even in the country U.S. carriers have blocked the service in favor of SoftCard.

It might not be the end of Wallet however, with rumors of a revival coming to Google I/O. The revival comes a few months after the launch of Apple Pay, which has seen growing retail adoption and no blockades from U.S. carriers.

Google is preparing to bring carriers, OEM partners and retail companies onto the Wallet platform, making sure it suffers no roadblocks. The search giant will offer a higher rate on mobile search to U.S. carriers as an incentive to work together.

OEM partners might be harder to allure, considering Samsung is working on its own payments service with LoopPay, but Google might pre-install Wallet and force manufacturers to promote it.

There is also the question of how Google will bring in retail companies, apart from showing off the technology to companies and hoping that they take it on board when the relaunch happens.

Since Apple Pay and Wallet both use contactless payments, technically most of the stores supporting Apple Pay also support Google’s own payment service in most cases.

Google needs to restructure most of its services, following a lackluster 2014 with no real progress in any division. The indecision on certain projects and services needs to be sorted out, and the relaunch of Wallet at Google I/O might serve as a start for other failing services.

The payments service was recently added to Gmail, allowing users to send money through an email attachment, but Wallet still lacks the mobile adoption to make it a competitor to Apple Pay.