Smartphones May Soon Replace Plastic Credit Cards

There's pretty much nothing our smartphones can't do nowadays. We can check E-mail, listen to music, get GPS directions, watch movies, anything you can think of. And pretty soon, we may be making payments with our phones as well.

Google has recently released a test pilot of their Google Wallet app, which would allow users to make purchases simply by swiping their phones over special phone readers. Right now, the app would only works with Citi MasterCard and Google's own prepaid card, but the company plans to support all types of cards eventually. Visa is also planning to release its own digital wallet later this year.

This may be where we're heading in the future, but I'm not too excited about it. Think about it, how many people have gotten their cell phones stolen, or left them behind? Maybe it's just me, but I really don't like the idea of having all of your personal financial information right there for anyone to get to. If this were to catch on, and it looks like it already is, we would need to have some super-tight security on these "digital wallets" to keep our money safe.