Google is almost certainly in talks with Softcard to acquire the joint venture from its telco owners, but the question is, what would Google gain from such a deal?

Both the Softcard wallet and Google’s own mobile wallet have failed to take off in the U.S., and both companies undertook restructuring of their wallet teams–most recently the deep job cuts by Softcard. See: Softcard’s job cuts are more severe than earlier reported.    

Tech site TechCrunch, as well as the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, all citing anonymous sources, said the search giant is interested in buying Softcard, for a low price of less than $100 million.