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Sprint Moves Towards Own NFC Payment System – Bye, Bye Google Wallet?

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Sprint has long been one of the few carriers to back Google Wallet here in the US, but it looks like that could soon change. According to a few internal slides leaked to Android Central, it seems Sprint is making plans to introduce their own mobile payment system, dubbed “Sprint Touch.” Everything here is pretty much standard form what you would find in a mobile payment app, complete with vault animations to give users a greater sense of security. Although the slides don’t reveal any official backing by well-known financial institutions, a few retailer loyalty reward cards from McDonald’s and Best Buy were briefly mentioned.

It’s unclear where Sprint’s future plans for Google Wallet lay, although I’m sure the carrier wont drop support for Google service entirely. What do you guys think? Do you welcome more options (and possibly better security) when it comes to making purchases using your NFC equipped device? Or is Google Wallet all the application you need on your Android device?

Chris Chavez
I've been obsessed with consumer technology for about as long as I can remember, be it video games, photography, or mobile devices. If you can plug it in, I have to own it. Preparing for the day when Android finally becomes self-aware and I get to welcome our new robot overlords.

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12 Comments

  1. Bad move sprint.

  2. Sprint, you’re willing to piss off Google and possibly burn bridges?? Good luck with THAT smart move. You’d better form some sort of alliance with Microsoft or Apple. (Thank god I’m with T-Mobile and not Sprint) I’ve got my NFC-enabled Nexus S, and I’ve gotta say, I LOVE my Google Wallet. My only wish… more participating merchants (…in due time).

  3. I wanna be able to plug my Discover Card into my Google Wallet account. They said they would join, but that was almost a year ago…

  4. WHY!!!!???? This is a dumb move. Why not use the $ else where like making 3g on the network better???

    1. I’m not defending this move, but they are working on making the network better. See ‘Network Vision’ and information about progress on it at s4gru.com

      As for the other thing, Sprint.. seriously. Throw some more weight into Google Wallet if you must, but this is stupid.

  5. Pretty sure that this is all useless talk until this becomes a viable form of payment in more than 3 stores. Maybe that should be worked on 1st before anything else.

  6. None of this NFC talk means a thing. Retailers aren’t even close to adopting NFC as mainstream. NFC will be a novelty payment system that a handful of trend setting companies accept for at least another 2 or 3 years. This is the “shake out” period. whoever survives the next few years may be successful in the long run. My money is definitely not on Sprint in this respect. who knows if Sprint is gonna be around in 2 or 3 years at all.

  7. It’s decisions like this that keep Sprint hemorrhaging money every quarter.

  8. Wow, the way things are going with everyone having their own nfc payment method, we will have to have 50 different apk for payments.

  9. Can they integrate Wallet into this?

  10. Wow, everyone is making their own NFC payments.

    Time to create my own NFC payment. Anyone else wanna join and create their own too?
    /s

  11. Sprint needs to focus on the network. Sprint how’s that 4G going? Still waiting !!!!!! LMFAO need to switch back to VZW

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