Google to offer prepaid debit cards

Google Inc would offer prepaid debit card that would allow consumers to purchase goods at stores and also withdraw cash from ATM machines, the internet company said yesterday.

The card, available only in the US, allows consumers access funds stored in their Google Wallet accounts.

Google Wallet, a smart phone app and online payment service, allows consumers to buy goods and transfer money to each other.

The new Wallet card would be accepted at "millions of locations" that accept MasterCard and at ATM machines, the interned search company said in a post on its official blog on Wednesday.

According to Google, the card is free and cardholders would not be charged monthly or annual fees. According to commentators, the card could help advance Google's efforts to play a bigger role in commerce. Google would also get valuable insights into consumer shopping habits. The move though, appeared to be less ambitious than the full-fledged credit card once rumoured to be in the works.

The company's credit card plans were earlier shelved, when Osama Bedier, the head of Google's Wallet and payments group, left the company in May, a report at the time in the technology blog AllThingsD had claimed.

Mashable, meanwhile, said to access the card's balance at retail and ATM locations, users were required to use the same pin that they already used with their Google Wallet account.

With the debit card integration, Google Wallet account holders can access the cash in their bank account and funds in the Wallet account sent by friends. They can also send notifications to the integrated mobile phone after each transaction.

According to a Google spokesperson, the updated app would be rolled out to Android users this week.

The report said that Google had spent around $300 million on the development of Google Wallet, but the product had failed to gain the kind of popularity its other products like YouTube and Gmail had notched.