Article

Payments go 'Hands Free' with Google app

The company is testing a cash-free payment method that lets users make and confirm purchases without reaching for a payment card — or even a smartphone.

March 10, 2016 by Will Hernandez — Editor, NetWorld Media Group

Even as Google continues to grow the user base for its Android Pay mobile wallet, the company is looking ahead to even newer alternatives — including hands-free payments. Google Hands Free combines a standalone app with Bluetooth technology to allow consumers to make and confirm purchases at participating retailers.

Earlier this month, Google announced that it is testing the Hands Free app with McDonald's and Papa John's in the South Bay area of San Francisco. 

"As a company we are perpetually committed to better — better ingredients, better pizza and a better customer experience," said Cynthia McClellen, senior vice president of global information services at Papa John’s International. "We're excited to be working with Google to test Hands Free in our Bay Area stores. It's yet another opportunity to push the possibilities of digital payment solutions for our customers." (Neither Google nor McDonald's responded to a request for comment from Mobile Payments Today.)

Some local eateries are involved in the pilot, as well, Google said.

In a Google Commerce blog post, Pali Bhat, senior director of product management,made it clear that the company views Hands Free as an addition to, rather than a replacement for, Android Pay.

"Since we launched Android Pay, we've averaged 1.5 million new registrations each month in the U.S. alone, and there are now over 2 million locations that accept tap and pay," he wrote. "At the same time, we also wanted to explore what the future of mobile payments could look like."

Here's what it looks like with Google Hands Free:

First, the consumer downloads the Hands Free app — available at both Google Play and the Apple App Store — onto an iPhone or Android device.

Next, the app user uploads bankcard information into the app, along with his or her head shot — presumably taken with the smart device.

Then, wrote Bhat :

Once you've installed and set up the app, Hands Free uses Bluetooth low energy, Wi-Fi, and location services on your phone to detect whether you're near a participating store. When you're ready to pay, you can simply tell the cashier, "I'll pay with Google." The cashier will ask for your initials and use the picture you added to your Hands Free profile to confirm your identity.

At select stores, we're also in the early stages of experimenting with visual identification so that you can breeze through checkout even faster. This process uses an in-store camera to automatically confirm your identity based on your Hands Free profile picture. All images captured by the Hands Free camera are deleted immediately.

The Google Hands Free website assures prospective app users that their payment information will always remain secure:

When you make a purchase, your full card details will not be shared with stores. Once you complete a purchase, you'll receive an instant notification right on your phone.

We'll also alert you to any unusual activity so you can go hands-free and be worry-free.

It should be noted that Google is not the first company to experiment with hands-free payments. Both PayPal and Square previously launched their own versions with limited degrees of success.

In 2011, Square introduced Square Wallet, a nonbeacon solution that allowed consumers to preload credit card information into a food ordering app and simply give their name when they arrived to collect their order from a participating restaurant. However, Square pulled the app from Google Pay and the Apple App Store in 2014 when it failed to generate the hoped-for consumer interest.

A successor to Square Wallet — Square Order — launched in 2014, but was abandoned in March 2015 for roughly the same reason. 

In 2013, PayPal introduced a beacon-based system that communicated with the company's PayPal Beacon app. In this iteration, the merchant confirms a purchase by comparing the customer's face with a headshot of the individual associated with the account.

It's not clear, though, that PayPal's beacon-based system will ever get off the ground. Almost since its launch, the company has maintained radio silence about the solution — while making a big noise about its mag stripe/EMV/contactless mobile POS solution, PayPal Here.

In an interview with TechCrunch, Bhat indicated that Google is taking a wait-and-see approach in deciding whether to stick with its Hands Free app past the pilot phase.

"Once we've made all the fine-tuning that potentially we get from the feedback from merchants and consumers, we then are going to start scaling it," Bhat told TechCrunch. "Until then, our goal is not to have millions and millions of users adopt."

Google's tinkering with hands-free payments puts the focus back on the Bluetooth low-energy beacon, which has had its ups and downs since Apple brought it to market in mid-2013. Near the end of 2015, many mainstream publications rushed to declare the technology deceased.

But companies such as Gimbal, Mobiquity Networks, shopkick and others have leveraged beacons to help merchants increase in-store mobile engagement with customers. These solution providers use the technology to push personalized offers and coupons to shoppers in-store who have enabled the feature on their smartphones.

So, could their efforts pave the way to beacon-based success for Google Hands Free?

Wait and see.

Additional reporting and editing by Suzanne Cluckey

photo istock

About Will Hernandez

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Will Hernandez has 14 years of experience ranging from newspapers to wire services and trade publications. Before becoming Editor of MobilePaymentsToday.com, he spent two years as the content manager for PaymentsJournal.com, a leading payments industry news aggregator and information hub published by Mercator Advisory Group. Will spent four years covering the payments industry as an associate editor for multiple publications in SourceMedia's Payments Group based in Chicago.

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