New Delhi: Google is experimenting with a feature that will let its Gmail users receive and pay their bills within their email accounts.
The service, dubbed Pony Express, has been designed to allow Gmail users to pay bills within Gmail without having to go to a telecom or utility company's website to complete the payment.
The possibilities with Pony Express are not hard to imagine. Google could potentially use the financial data that would allow it to expand into new businesses. Your bill history and payment methods would only further allow the search giant to throw up more customised ads on your screen.
A report on Re/code indicated that the all-inclusive feature points to Google's larger ambition of bringing all the information online, digitizing everything around us.
The document procured by Re/code details the procedure through which users can sign up for the service. All that a Gmail user needs to do is provide their personal details to a third-party company that registers their identity. You might also be required to provide information such as a full credit card number or telephone number to get started.
Post authentication, users will be able to receive bills in Gmail or the Inbox app (Google's new email app). Although e-billing already exists, but Google will auto-sort your mails for bills and put them in the Pony Express folder.
With Pony Express, Google could suck in the type of financial data that would allow it to expand into new businesses. Credit card bills and payment history would be a gateway into industries such as personal finance or lending. And the data could be used to refine how advertisements are targeted to individuals on Google, YouTube and partnering sites, though such a move would likely stoke privacy concerns. It's not clear whether Google would generate any revenue directly from the Pony Express service.
Pony Express will use a link with a bank account or a debit card to let users pay the bills. Google Wallet doesn't currently allow for payments through bank account and this service could mean an extension of the Wallet feature.
It will also allow users to share a bill with another Gmail user, which means you can automate the process of splitting food or house rent bills with your friends. Other features include customer service contact information for a given service provider and an option to take a photo of a piece of mail to have it archived in digital form in Pony Express.
The new service is scheduled to start in the fourth quarter.
Comments
0 comment