Google released a physical Google Wallet debit card on Wednesday, a move that feels more than a bit like revenge.
Users can order the free card from within the Google Wallet app, or else from within the Google Wallet itself. To load it, users can pull funds from a bank account, another debit card or credit card, or from friends who can either email money via Gmail or send it via the Wallet app.
If this sounds familiar, it should. A virtual prepaid Google debit card shipped with the original iteration of Google Wallet, which like the physical card, could be preloaded with funds from another account. And if more carriers had allowed Google Wallet on their phones, Google's physical debit card might never have seen the light of day.
As it is, however, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless formed the ISIS partnership—a similar, tap-and-pay, electronic wallet effort from the three carriers. Google, for its part, remains frozen out of the tap-and-pay market on the three-carrier networks, which allow smartphone users to tap their phone and transfer funds on hundreds of thousands of NFC-equipped payment terminals.
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