Scalper1 News
If Google and its Hands Free payments app can achieve a critical mass of brick-and-mortar stores, other digital wallet companies and payments processors could find themselves facing tougher competition — at least, based on my test of the app. Hands Free is designed to eliminate the need to pull out a smartphone and tap it on a point-of-sale system when paying with Android Pay. It uses a combination of your initials, phone and picture to complete each transaction. And it works. Well. Google, which is a unit of Alphabet ( GOOGL ), rolled out Hands Free in March to at least 15 businesses with locations around the South San Francisco Bay Area. Since IBD’s Silicon Valley bureau is located near several, I decided to test the idea of ordering and paying for something with only my voice — part of the future we’ve been promised. After taking a selfie — a photo is required to use the Hands Free app — on my Nexus 5X phone, I headed to a nearby McDonald’s ( MCD ), one of the chains participating in the pilot program. A colleague in the newsroom wanted a Diet Coke, and I was happy to oblige. Phone in my pocket, I walked up to the cash register, placed my order for a medium Diet Coke and then uttered the phrase “Can I pay with Google?” The cashier skipped a beat and replied, “Of course you can! Initials?” I replied with mine. “M.C. Hammer!” she said, and pressed a few more buttons on the register. “Wearing a hat today, I see,” she said, studying my hatless selfie on the register. And then she handed the beverage over with a receipt (I got an emailed receipt as well). Neither my phone nor wallet ever left my pockets. My order was small and the test limited, but it’s clear that the implications could be far-reaching if consumers take to the idea. If Hands Free were available widely, I would certainly use it — paying with just your voice is incredibly easy (and cool, too). At its core, Hands Free takes a swing at a big issue in payments (and e-commerce in general): how to make checkout as frictionless as possible. PayPal ( PYPL ) and its most recent endeavor on that front, One Touch , also attacks the friction problem. Apple ( AAPL ) Pay and rival Android Pay are also trying to innovate around the friction Silicon Valley perceives in paying with cash, a credit card or a mobile phone. With Google running a relatively small pilot program, it’s hard to say at this early stage what impact Hands Free will have on its digital wallet. I doubt that being able to pay with Hands Free would alter where I go to buy things, but it just might be enough to convince me to pick Android Pay over its competitors. Scalper1 News
Scalper1 News