GOOGLE Australia is considering a plan to take on payments giants such as Visa, Mastercard and B-Pay in the booming online payments market. The move comes as the search giant secured a financial services license from local regulators.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission recently issued Google Australia with an authority to provide deposit and payments services to local merchants and shoppers.  While the licence does not permit Google to provide cash-based payments services to Australian clients, it will enable the group to facilitate digital or online transactions.

Web-based commerce is a hotly contested and lucrative market for payments providers and has spawned a raft of new players including E-Bay subsidiary PayPal.

The ASIC licence potentially opens a fresh revenue stream for Google which will be able to collect processing and transaction fees for bringing shoppers and merchants together via its websites.

Google Australia spokesman Rob Schilken confirmed that the company was working on options to roll out an internet payments platform in Australia.  "It's a matter of doing the due diligence and the homework so that if we're in a position to launch we can do it," he said.

But no decision has been taken."  Through PayPal, EBay has stolen a march on Google in the Australian online payments arena.

Market research published earlier this month by Neilson Online found that 7.3 million Australians shop over the internet.