In a blog post, Osama Bedier, VP, wallet and payments, Google, says TxVia will "complement our payments capabilities and accelerate innovation towards our full Google Wallet vision".

Founded in 2008, TxVia's payments platform has supported the management of more than 100 million accounts and last year secured a deal with new banking player Simple.

The vendor has also certified and directly connected to the major payment networks, "which establishes a solid foundation for Google Wallet and our partners to drive innovation on a global scale," says Bedier.

News of the acquisition comes as Google Wallet co-founder Rob von Behren revealed on his LinkedIn profile that he has jumped ship for rival Square where he takes on the exotic sounding role of 'hyperspatial payments pioneer'.

Von Behren's exit comes soon after founding engineer, Jonathan Wall, and product lead, Marc Freed-Finnegan, quit the Wallet project to set up their own payments start-up.

Despite its enormous clout, Google has found its entry into the mobile payments market tough work, experiencing a number of security setbacks and coming up against fierce rivals in Square, PayPal and the Isis telco consortium.