Google Authorized for E-Money by UK-Based FSA Well, payments is one of the most regulated businesses online, but it's also a very innovative way to differentiate one's business by new payments models. Customers like to buy what they want wherever they are and it is just a question of time that Google will expand into the European payments market.

I haven't heard yet an official statement from Google, but on a blog post from Linkdump on Payments I found a quotation of an FSA register search:

• Google - 462517 - Google Payment Limited, authorised, also for issuing electronic money (Mar/19/2007)
  
• Paypal - 226056 - Paypal (Europe) Ltd, authorised, issuing electronic money (Feb/13/2004)
  

where PayPal has about 35 mio. customers across Europe. I did a bit of research out of my head and searched for German-based Click&Buy (~7 mio. customers ww) and UK-based Moneybookers (~2.8 mio. customers ww):

• 454127 - ClickandBuy (Europe) Ltd, authorised, issuing electronic money (Nov/29/2006)
• 214225 - Moneybookers Ltd, authorised, issuing electronic money (Feb/05/2003)

Both are authorized for e-money, too. The e-money license allows to offer a variety of financial services online including to send money worldwide to anyone with an email address, which has a very strong viral character and international transactions can be offered cheaper than by banks and traditional money transfer companies.

UK is the best place to acquire the e-money license across Europe and being certified by the FSA means to meet the highest standards in the financial world online.

More on Google Checkout

Labels: bizdev, checkout, ecommerce, google, payments, uk

  ¶ 'Google Authorized for E-Money by UK-Based FSA' posted by eA : 6:15 PM