Google Swipes PayPal Vice President Of Product Development

Google has just poached the top payment executive from PayPal Osama Bedier, a man apparently key in moving the payment brand toward mobile payments. Does this have anything to do with Google's recent big moves toward NFC implementation in their Android OS? Paypal's CTO Scott Guilfoyle writes his goodbyes and thank yous to Bedier on the PayPal Blog, noting that his replacement will be a man by the name of Matthew Mengerink, a 10 year PayPal veteran who's led "PayPal architecture, infrastructure, payments development, core technologies, international development and customer quality and engineering services teams." Guilfoyle also notes that Mengerink "has 95 musical instruments at home and plays most of them."

If you do follow the link back to the last time we spoke about Near Field Communications, you'll note that Google's soon-to-be ex CEO Eric Schmidt speaks on NFC as one of the tools the world needs to move the financial world forward. He also mentions much cheaper phones, and expanded future 8-to-10 megabit networks. Is there a glorious future in Google phones activating the global economy in a way nothing has ever activated it before?

[Via Near Field Communications World]