Google Wallet chief Osama Bedier leaves company

The head of Google Wallet -- the Web giant's mobile payments initiative -- has left the company, Google confirmed Wednesday.

"We can confirm that Osama Bedier has decided to leave Google this year to pursue other opportunities," Google spokesman Nate Tyler said in a statement. "He's achieved a lot during his time here and we wish him all the best in his next endeavor. Payments are a big part of what people do every day, and we're committed to making them easier for everyone."

Bedier joined Google in 2011, leaving eBay's PayPal unit in a high-profile move that sparked a lawsuit later that year. eBay alleged that the Web giant misappropriated trade secrets from its mobile-payment business when it hired away Bedier, a key executive in PayPal's mobile payments effort.

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The lawsuit, which listed 50 unidentified defendants, also accused Google Vice President of Electronic Commerce Stephanie Tilenius, another former PayPal executive, of violating contractual obligations by recruiting Bedier, with whom she had worked for several years. Tilenius left Google last summer for venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins.

It's not clear if Bedier's departure is related to the lackluster performance of Google Wallet, its mobile payments platform based on near field communication (NFC). But two years after its introduction, the app is still only supported on smartphones with embedded NFC on one major carrier network in the U.S., Sprint.

(Via Venture Beat)