G-Money anyone? Will Google overtake Paypal to become a leading payments system?

Are we being pushed towards an electronic crypto-currency in the future? Some would say not after the well documented Bitcoin crash has helped to cast doubts over the future of electronic money.

Or has it?

Say hello to Google’s new e-Money system. But before we go into that, let’s take a brief trip back to last year.

In May 2013, the tech corporation launched a new scheme which allowed individuals to send money to other people.

It also allowed users to connect their Gmail with a Google Wallet account and send money to a friend for free (from a linked bank account) or for a small fee (from a credit card).

Initially, the service could only be accessed by those with a Google Wallet account or who had previously sent money via Google.

Fast forward back to this year, and now that all looks set to change.

Over the next 18 months, the company announced that it would roll out the scheme to the wider members of the public.

This will allow Google to directly capture the bank details of millions of users and link it with their emails. Eventually it could allow the corporate giant to overtake Paypal as a leading payment system.

The likelihood is that in time, the tech giant will start multiplying the ways in which users can use their software and hardware to pay for things and send money.

The firm has already seized ownership of Youtube and Gmail, although it has also been linked in the past to a fair few privacy scandals. Just last year, it said in a statement that those who use the Gmail service should not expect privacy.

In a submission to a lawsuit in the US it said: “Just as a sender of a letter to a colleague cannot be surprised that the recipient’s assistant opens the letter, people who use web-based email today cannot be surprised if their communications are processed by the recipient’s ECS [electronic communications service] provider in the course of delivery. Indeed a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information they voluntarily hand over to third parties.”

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