Google’s Payments division is seeking synergies across many of Google’s business units – hence the recent insertion of several AdWords executives into  the Payments leadership.

Speaking at Money2020 in Las Vegas, Google Payment VP Ariel Bardin bluntly acknowledged that people don’t think Google has a real role in the payments world, and didn’t mind that Google Wallet was struggling to take off. But Google can help merchants in a number of ways, while also helping itself.

Merchants can get strong signals into consumer behavior by tracking payments. Tracking payments also helps tie together the various advertising and promotion pieces, said Bardin.

In a recent Google survey of 1,500 smart phone users, for instance, 45 percent said they wanted loyalty products from merchants on their mobile device, but just 4 percent actually have them. “This is an area we can help,” said Bardin.

Indeed, there are natural synergies with payments “Post,” “Pre” and “During” research into transactions.

In the “Pre” phase, Google has an interest in driving queries to specific shopping categories. Bardin noted that Google has indexed over one billion products (and is selling Product listing Ads). It can achieve a 500 percent boost in queries to specific categories.

It can also send out geofenced coupons via its partnership with ValPak. “There are lots of coupons you can see,” said Bardin. There are also new mobile vertical applications, such as The Fancy, an Android app that is highly personalized based on user data, including credit card information.

In the “During” phase, the interest is in boosting Google Maps, Google Offers and Google Wallet. A lot of it hinges on getting more customer loyalty.

“Post” transaction, Google is developing a set of data and analysis for participating merchants, which currently include: Expedia, uber, Priceline, Toys R Us, Hilton and others. Loyalty efforts, including points, play a big role in that as well.

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While industry hype would suggest that payments will be largely coming from the phone within a few years, a majority of Money 2020 attendees, in a survey, said it won’t be happening until 2020 or later.

The four question survey also revealed that attendees believe the biggest drivers of a new payments environment are 1) data and analytics; 2) wallets for consumers; and 3) omnichannel commerce using multiple devices.

Who will be the big winners? Attendees said traditional financial service providers, marketing services and payment companies. The y said the biggest losers will be banks, Point of Sales equipment providers, acquirers and payment networks.

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Card linked offers are increasingly being used by merchants and consumers alike. Indeed, a group of early adopters have already started using card linked offers on a weekly or monthly basis, with usage expected to be constant and universal within just a few years. But a lack of standards is holding them back from the big time.

Cue The CardLinx Association, a standards body that includes such charter members as First Data, Bank of America, MasterCard, Microsoft, Living Social, Deem, Cardspring, Affinity Networks and Linkable. The idea: move card linked offers from being a series of disjointed offer schemes to a highly used platform.

Speaking at Money 2020 today in Las Vegas, Bank of America SVP of Ecommerce Jason Blackhurst noted that many merchants are already seeing a strong ROI on card linked offer programs. The issue: resolve their complexity and add standards.

“We expect seamless,” added First Data SVP Dom Morea. “That’s critical.”

Another issue: get rid of the stigma associated with card linked offered. Gift cards no longer have a stigma, noted Living Social CFO John Bax. “You can use them any time. But you don’t want to pull out a Groupon or Living Social offer on a first date.”

To be successful, a number of things have to happen, noted another speaker. You have to have standards; it has to be promoted via word of mouth; the big technology companies have to adopt it to reduce friction between them; and retailers need to track inventory and use it as a strategic tool overall.

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