Google Wallet is the search engine’s ambitious play to push mobile payments into the mainstream. When the service goes live in New York and San Francisco this summer, users will download the Google Wallet application from the Android Market and provision either a Citi MasterCard or Google prepaid card to work with the app and the NFC (near-field communications) chip on their phone. Shoppers may then just tap to pay for goods on NFC-supporting point-of-sale terminals in more than 311,000 retail stores worldwide that offer MasterCard’s PayPass service. Wallet needs a raison d’etre or else it’s just another niche, erstwhile payment play. [Read more…]