Radio Shack has announced that it will be one of the first retailers that will be taking advantage of the latest mobile payment technology being offered through Google Wallet.
This announcement follows a press conference made by Google in June, when it divulged its new partnerships with credit card companies and banks that would bring near field communications (NFC) payments to phones running on their Android operating system.
The start of the service was through the Nexus S phone, but NFC will be a part of all future Android phones, in combination with the app for Google Wallet. All that retailers require in order to offer this payment method to their customers is the device that reads the information transmitted through the NFC chip so that a transaction can occur. In this, Radio Shack is leading the way.
It is expected that mobile payment could be available as soon as September 1, 2011. As one of Google’s partners for the first wave of availability for the technology, Radio Shack has already been installing reader devices for NFC transactions in some of its stores. That said, customers shouldn’t expect that the technology will be available in every location and in many other retailers quite yet.
As the technology is still exceptionally young, it is believed that it could take at least a couple of years before it becomes widespread. Especially as the mobile device users have yet to determine whether or not they feel that their information is secure when using the method.
While many industry experts are saying that the encryption for mobile payments is significantly more secure than that currently used for debit purchases using a card, that confidence has yet to be transmitted to the consumer.
