While we were preoccupied with Hurricane Sandy, it seems Google has decided that digital money ain’t all its cracked up to be.

The search engine company cum payments vendor will reportedly introduce a physical payments card to solve its “we are Americans and we don’t tap-and-pay” problem.

From the Android Police blog:

We just had a bomb dropped on us by an anonymous tipster, courtesy of a leaked version of the Google Wallet app – and it was hiding some pretty amazing secrets. Let’s cut to the chase: physical Google Wallet card. That’s happening, and you’ll be able to get one, probably soon.

The physical Google Wallet card will work just like a regular credit card. Whatever your currently selected default card on the Wallet app is, the Wallet card will charge to. It will work anywhere major credit cards are accepted. This is for those scenarios where you don’t have (or want to use) tap and pay. Imagine leaving all your credit cards at home from now on, and just carrying one, and your phone. Sure, it’s not the magical future of using your phone to pay everywhere with a painless tap (let’s face it, tap payments are rarely painless anyway).

Whether this solves Google Wallet’s challenges, we don’t know, but it certainly adds a surprising wrinkle to the payments wars. And Isis responds with …

See more coverage of the Google Wallet card here, here and here.