Internet giant, Google has suspended ht provisioning of prepaid credit cards on its mobile payments service, Google Wallet following the discovery of a venerability that allows anyone to exploit a stolen or lost device to steal money from customers.

The company had disabled prepaid capability on 10 February after a blog post exposed a venerability that allowed people to recover prepaid balances stored in Google Wallet without knowing the personal identification number protecting the app.

Google Wallet uses the Near Field Communications (NFC) technology allowing users to make payments using their mobile phones. Osama Bedier, vice president of Google Wallet and Payments had earlier said that the company is disabling provisioning of prepaid cards as a precaution until a permanent fix for the vulnerability is fixed.

The users are required to sign up for a Citi MasterCard account or get a Google Prepaid Card. Google is working with Visa, American Express and Discover cards to integrate them in newer versions of the app. The service allows users to make payments in any 300,000 shops and other outlets in the US and in other countries if they accept MasterCard PayPass.

The service will be available in the US only initially and the company is aiming to launch the service in Europe stating with the US, in 2012.