GigaOM Pro

The Wall Street Journal offers an update this morning on a consortium of retailers looking to take on Google, PayPal and everybody else in the crowded (but dubious) market of mobile payments. Wal-Mart, Target, 7-Eleven and 11 others claim to have an edge over other offerings because of their relationships with customers, which they claim will help ease consumer concerns about paying for goods and services with the phone. I’m pretty skeptical of that strategy — I certainly don’t trust Wal-Mart or 7-Eleven any more than I trust PayPal — but an ever-increasing number of mobile payment offerings are emerging despite the fact that we haven’t seen any real uptake at brick-and-mortar stores. And as I’ve written before, all those different solutions will only serve to shackle the market in the near- to mid-term.