Google Patent Ignites Talk Of Mobile Payment Solution

Google is getting into every business imaginable, so it’s not hard to believe that the company may be interested in the mobile payment solutions business, but a new patent filing by the Mountain Valley company has people wondering if that’s their plan after all.

A Google patent application, filed last year but only just published, describes how a mobile phone could trigger a “computer-implemented method of effectuating an electronic online payment.”

Such a service, dubbed “GPay” by bloggers, would allow users to send a text message to Google, detailing a payment they want to make to a specific recipient. Google would then debit the sender’s bank account, and credit the payee. Payments could be made externally from one bank account to another, meaning that recipients would not necessarily need to have an account with GPay.

Google would neither confirm nor deny the rumor. They said that patent filings are common for them and that the existence of one doesn’t automatically mean a product is being produced. But the evidence does appear to point that way.