By Sydia Bell

In 2010, Google acquired an ecommerce company for approximately $70 million. The In-App payment application enabled developers, both small and large, to make payment collection easy and straightforward for customers and business owners alike. The app was co-created by Amazon.com veteran and Georgia Tech alum Vikas Gupta, who gives his alma mater credit for his invention.

The former Atlantan is now the head of consumer payments at Google and played a part in spear heading efforts in the re-invention of the online payment industry.

Now, with just one-click, customers can purchase an item at a store, the next level of a game or any other digital content from the screen they are currently on. Instead of having to open up an entirely different application like PayPal, Google has created a frictionless purchase experience for the web.

Unlike other apps that tack on a 30 percent up-charge for using  online payments, Google’s stays at a flat rate of 5 percent. Gupta made sure that this low cost structure was embedded in the company because he remembers the days when he was a new international student with little money in his.

The invention required Gupta and his colleagues to re-think all aspects of the payments platform – something he was used to doing as a student at Georgia Tech. Gupta recalls how the daily projects assigned in his classes required out of box thinking and also made him realize that whatever he put to his mind he could achieve.

It was that drive and determination first detected as a student and developed further in his following years that lead Gupta to pursue his dream.

For more information on In-App payment application visit, visit checkout.google.com/inapppayments.

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Collin Kelley is the executive editor of Atlanta Intown, Georgia Voice, and the Rough Draft newsletter. He has been a journalist for nearly four decades and is also an award-winning poet and novelist.

4 replies on “Google This! Georgia Tech alumnus revolutionizes online payments”

  1. There is nothing really revolutionary here! There are lots of apps out there that give you online payments and they go directly on your page as a shopping cart. I sell NMI Gateway with Payscape Processing which is a Atlanta based company and the 13th best place to work according to Atlanta Business Chronicles. Our rates will come in well under 5 percent nearly every time, your money goes directly into your bank account, and you also have the ability to swipe a card on any smart devise or devise with a web connection. If you have the ability to swipe you will want to take advantage of the Durbin rates which are under 1 percent on major banks debit cards. I know everyone has heard the buzz about the BIG BANKS trying to charge extra for using debit cards, the Durbin is what changed these rates but no merchant will get the reduced rates without being re-priced by a processor who offers Durbin rates. Payscape offers Durbin Rates!

    Google has published on their “Google Checkout” page scaled rates based on how much business you do, they do not offer the same savings to smaller merchants that do less business only the big guys out there. We offer the same rates to anyone no matter how small or large. Google may be better than PayPal but they are not better than what Payscape can offer you.

  2. There is nothing really revolutionary here! There are lots of apps out there that give you online payments and they go directly on your page as a shopping cart. I sell NMI Gateway with Payscape Processing which is a Atlanta based company and the 13th best place to work according to Atlanta Business Chronicles. Our rates will come in well under 5 percent nearly every time, your money goes directly into your bank account, and you also have the ability to swipe a card on any smart devise or devise with a web connection. If you have the ability to swipe you will want to take advantage of the Durbin rates which are under 1 percent on major banks debit cards. I know everyone has heard the buzz about the BIG BANKS trying to charge extra for using debit cards, the Durbin is what changed these rates but no merchant will get the reduced rates without being re-priced by a processor who offers Durbin rates. Payscape offers Durbin Rates!

    Google has published on their “Google Checkout” page scaled rates based on how much business you do, they do not offer the same savings to smaller merchants that do less business only the big guys out there. We offer the same rates to anyone no matter how small or large. Google may be better than PayPal but they are not better than what Payscape can offer you.

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