At Google’s annual developers conference, the company announced that it is integrating Gmail with Google Wallet to allow users to send payments as an e-mail attachment.
According to ITworld, Gmail users will now be able to send payments to others even if they do not have accounts with the mail service. Google Wallet Product Manager Travis Green said Gmail users will only have to hover over the attachment button, click the dollar sign that pops up and enter the amount of money they wish to send.
The new service will be free for those who have an existing Google Wallet account. The payments will come out of a linked bank account, a Google Wallet balance or debit and credit cards. Transactions using payment cards will carry a flat fee of 2.9 percent with minimum of $0.30.
“Google loves to use Gmail as a seedbed for nascent services,” says Yankee Group Principal Analyst Jason Armitage, commenting on the news. “Google has been pushing Wallet in mobile payments and online since 2011. Although it’s not fledgling, Google wants to supercharge its payment play by adding a pay button for the benefit of the hundreds of millions of Gmail devotees. This is a canny move. Online payment in all its forms should be attempting to make the process easier than existing methods. Google Wallet P2P payments are now as seamless as attaching a photo to an e-mail.”
