Google has partnered with New Jersey Transit, the US public transport provider, so that travellers can purchase tickets on railways and buses using the search giant’s wallet service. Public transport is viewed as key element in driving the success of NFC-based mobile payments systems, a view confirmed by a statement from Stephanie Tilenius, Google’s vice president of commerce. “Transit is the fastest way to accelerate adoption and reach usage density in major urban centres by habituating the behaviour of tapping and paying with phones…”  Google launched the wallet last month with retailers but New Jersey Transit is the first public transport system to partner with it. Customers can only buy tickets using Google Wallet at certain locations: New York’s Penn Station, Newark airport’s rail station and on certain bus routes.

The move follows Google's addition  to the Wallet of a capability to redeem coupons and earn reward points with their mobile handset.  Google has given the whole service – including payment, coupon redemption and earnings of point –  the SingleTap brand.  The attraction of this additional capability is the convenience for users since redeeming coupons and earning points happens automatically and does not involve producing a physical card for a sales assistant.  Google Wallet’s new capability was announced in a blog by Spencer Spinnell, the company’s director, emerging markets. Google’s enhancement adds a two-way capability to the NFC communication so that a retailer’s point-of-sale terminal also sends back data to the user’s handset, as well as receiving payment data from it. The redemption of coupons and/or earning of points is now available at eight retail chains (and ten retail brands) in the US although currently only at what Google describes as “select locations”. It does not specify how many of their partners’ outlets will be offering the new service.  Google has also added a featured offers section to the wallet that includes reductions off purchases at partner stores that are exclusive to Google Wallet users.