rohitj - 10:25 pm on Feb 9, 2006 (gmt 0)

I doubt this is being pursued so they can cut transactions costs for credit card processing. They likely already have a very favorable deal with visa, mastercard, and all other credit card companies. In fact, anyone who processes millions each day would.

It may given them more transaction power, wherein they can negotiate even better rates but even that is somewhat of a stretch. My guess is that they want to integrate this with froogle and google print among other things to actually sell goods rather than services, adding a stable system to generate revenue.