Google Offers combines with Google Wallet in new SingleTap experience

Google and some of its retail partners have rolled out an updated experience to the four-week old Google Wallet payment-by-phone system that now includes coupons and rewards points, which can all be redeemed with a single tap of the user's NFC-enabled smartphone. Google is calling the updated experience "SingleTap."

In this updated experience, Google Offers has been incorporated into the wireless payment system. In the "Offers" tab in the Google Wallet app, there are deals exclusive to users of the wireless payment service, and whenever a user scans his Google Wallet wireless device, these deals are automatically activated whether or not he's actually checked them out in the tab.

Additionally, the Google Prepaid Card interface has been improved to show realtime transaction data, which includes how much money is left on the prepaid card, which store it's associated with, and the time and location of all past transactions on the card.

The last major part of the update is the automatic inclusion of loyalty cards from select stores participating in the Google Wallet program. These include cards from Foot Locker, Guess, OfficeMax, and American Eagle, with more on the way. Standalone loyalty card applications that do this very thing are common, and they now face competition not only from one another, but from behemoth Google.

Of course, "SingleTap" is different from Google's standard "Tap and Pay," and only a selection of merchants are participating in SingleTap currently. If you check the Google Wallet map, the majority of locations listed are still Tap and Pay only.