Google shreds plans for physical Google Wallet credit card

Earlier this week Google confirmed that its head of Google Wallet will leave later this year, and today AllThingsD reports that the company is scrapping its plans for a physical credit card that would accompany its mobile payment service.

Google CEO Larry Page reportedly canned the physical card just last week after being dissatisfied with its reliability due to glitches.

The company was reportedly preparing to demo the physical card, which featured the colorful Google Wallet “W” branding, at Google I/O next week, so it is interesting that this report is surfacing so suddenly.

Larry Page reportedly cited more innovative approaches to mobile commerce from startups like Square, which seems to have solidified his decision to shred the company’s plans for a physical Google Wallet credit card.

Currently, Google Wallet can connect with select credit cards and smartphone handsets enabling payment through near field communication, or NFC, and Google plans to offer greater incentives for consumers to choose its mobile payment solution with more benefits and loyalty programs.

Google Wallet and Google Now, which is the company’s artificially intelligent voice assistant, seem to be developed separately, as Wallet is part of the company’s ads devision.

We expect to see more on this front next week at Google I/O.