Google Wallet will soon let phones without NFC (budget phones) make in-store payments with QR codes
The feature will launch in Brazil first, allowing Android users to pay through their debit or credit card by scanning a QR code displayed on the payment terminal. Since most smartphones in Brazil do not ship with NFC, adding QR code support for payments will ...continues
@OutOnTheMoors not as a bank as far as I'm aware. It's a pass through service like Apple and Samsung has. The funds get drawn real-time from your own bank to pay for the purchase. A bank as I understand it is a service where you deposit money, get paid interest, can take loans for a house, car, etc. This works with debit cards. They may have some other service but the post is about plain payments.
@mensrea@danie10 And those options pay local taxes/fees - while Google's are channelled back to the mothership, and they pay taxes on fees made by the transfer of SA money ... in the US. There's major issues with the regulations, and Google exploits the loopholes the way international corporate giants always do.
@OutOnTheMoors@mensrea I think Visa and Mastercard though are already non-SA entities if we use them? There are tax agreements in place though between Google and SA, for example my income on my YouTube channel is exempt from being taxed in the USA due to that agreement with SARS and I declare it as income to SARS locally.
@mensrea@OutOnTheMoors yes true as each party generally pays tax where they earn it. The changing for licenses is different as they have a local branch doing the selling locally, but yet they transact in US$ and pay tax in Ireland.
But are we sure about Google Wallet? Because the Playstore collects and pays SA VAT for sales. So there is a tax agreement with SARS.
@danie10@mensrea PlayStore has plenty of major problems that Google's aware of but declines to act against. One of the biggest is it's used for round-tripping of funds to avoid taxation, using Gmail addresses that Google itself is the sole source of "verification" for. Google makes tiny amounts off all of these transactions. They add up nicely, though.
For example, I have access to a Russian Gmail account (owned by a friend) that Google will cheerfully tell anyone who asks is mine.
@OutOnTheMoors@mensrea yes their big killing is on licenses and cloud services which are collected in dollars for good reason. That whole Ireland story should be outlawed, and it is our own government's fault too. Rule should be if you provide a service in a country, and you have offices there, you transact in the local currency and pay taxes due. The law does state tho that if a local entity pays for a service in foreign currency, they are duty bound to pay VAT to SARS. But M$ ignores that...
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