Given the country-specific regulatory red tape that comes with anything involving money, there's more of an excuse than normal to roll this out country-by-country.
Google Wallet is how old now, three+ years? They didn't even bother adding any other way to pay than credit cards. Someone needs to tell them that there are countries where people simply don't use credit cards. They exist, but at cost, and the culture just isn't there.
If they continue innovating in the payment space at this rate, they will maybe have a solution people here can actually use in 2020.
Uh yes I guess. With a debit card (we just call them bank cards) you withdraw money from the bank account, but from what I've heard a credit card doesn't work entirely the same.
Credit cards are merely debt obligations, and therefore money printing machines. If I have a credit limit of $10k, there isn't actually a $10k account anywhere backing that limit. The bank pays the merchant, yes, but you can follow the trail of that money all the way up to the central bank which created it out of nothing for purpose of fulfilling debt obligations. The money is then destroyed when I pay the bank back at the end of the month.
To the consumer they appear basically the same (“they both have the VISA logo right?”), but in understanding the mechanics of what is happening, they could not be more different.
I doubt a proxy will get you in on this. Google isn't that stupid. Financial transactions are seriously monitored by almost every government. You'll probably have to link to a U.S. bank acct or something.
