Google Credit Card?

So a couple of weeks ago, on Monday October 22nd to be precise Google announced that MetroPCS was now going to begin supporting Google Wallet. They also announced that if you had the Galaxy S III on Metro you could now download the app and start using it. They also decided to tease us by letting us know something new was coming to Wallet but not going into details. But after what was mostly likely an unintentional change in the Google Wallet support site, we can now speculate, and guess that a Google Wallet credit card might be on its way. Now the site lists eligible devices that can be used with the Google Wallet Card. It tells us that all Android devices using Gingerbread (2.3.3) and up can download the Google Wallet app for use with the card. However it points out that to use the tap to pay functionality, your phone needs to be NFC (near field communication) enabled.

Now while Google is being secretive about the whole thing the good folks over at Androidpolice managed to get their hands on some nice leaked information. Now what does this information tell us you ask? It seems to show us that the Wallet card will function like any normal credit card allowing it to be used anywhere you'd use a credit card. It would automatically use whichever card is your default mobile payment method in the app, and also allows you to still make purchases if your phone happened to die while you're out. One less thing to worry about.

Now this news is likely to excite some, and have no effect on others; and while it remains to be seen if this will increase overall adoption of the Google Wallet service in general or if it will only attract the same few it currently does. Now while I'm skeptical to think offering a physical card will suddenly make people start using their phone to pay for everything, I do think it's likely to attract new customer's. Especially seeing how the number one complain I've heard from people who say they don't want to use Google Wallet is the fact that they feel NFC is insecure. This may do enough to put their minds at ease and allow them to give the service as a whole a chance. That may be Google's plan to begin with, if so I think it's a solid plan. For their sake I hope this increases the amount of people using Google Wallet, seeing as so far adoption has been less than stellar.