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The departure of two key former Google Wallet staffers from the company to start their own mobile-commerce venture is throwing a spotlight on what have been internal disagreements at the Web giant over strategy for the NFC-based wallet.

Google Wallet chief Osama Bedier late Tuesday said the Web giant had restored the ability to issue new prepaid cards to the wallet after implementing a fix.

Google has temporarily suspended provisioning of prepaid cards in its Google Wallet, as it implements a fix to prevent a simple hack that would allow unauthorized users to spend prepaid balances on lost or stolen wallet phones.

Google has confirmed in statements to the press that Verizon Wireless is trying to block it from offering the Google Wallet on its own Galaxy Nexus smartphone, which Verizon is expected to put on sale later this month.

The head of payments at Google, Osama Bedier, cautions against NFC wallet providers closing their platforms, warning the move would backfire.

Visa, American Express and Discover Financial Services have agreed to work with Google to enable consumers to put their payment applications into future versions of the Google Wallet, which the Web giant launched today.

LONDON – Google plans to launch its Google Wallet in at least one major European city during the first half of 2012, said Osama Bedier, Google’s vice president of payments, who discounted talk of a coming NFC wallet war in either the United States or Europe.

Google, which makes more than 95% of its revenue from Web advertising, sees a major opportunity to use NFC to help it take advantage of its Web search dominance with physical merchants and advertis

Online payment company PayPal wasted little time in giving its review of the new Google Wallet, filing suit against the two Google executives who led the unveiling of the NFC wallet yesterday–accusing the executives of stealing PayPal's trade secrets.