Groupon, and its copycats, have rocked the retail world. On the surface, the revolution could be mistaken as simply an innovative way to sell stuff.

But the truth is that Groupon is changing the way consumers pay, and that change will accelerate as the digital wallet comes to life.

The innovation of Groupon is in the coupon. Consumers get the offer for a discounted yoga lesson or 60% off an Italian meal and bring that discount coupon to the brick-and-mortar store to buy. The coupon is bringing people to the store who might never have set foot there.

The coupon, however, will go to a whole other level when the digital wallet hits critical mass, and bankers should better understand the advertising implications of the evolution in payments.

Already, reports indicate that Groupon is in talks with cash-register makers to streamline using its coupons as payments and also plans to launch a new service soon: Groupon Now, which will offer time and location specific deals on mobile phones.

This is important to financial services because of its underlying notion that NFC technology also hopes to address and make lots of money from retailers (and eventually FIs) better targeting their advertising to bring new customers to their stores. This new advertising paradigm will be best-achieved through mobile phones. Indeed, much of the financial charm of a NFC-empowered digital wallet is owning the customers’ eyeballs for advertising benefits.

This week, The Wall Street Journal leaked that Google, which tried to buy Groupon last year, is getting in bed with MasterCard Inc. and Citigroup Inc. to insert itself into mobile payments. Rather than swipe fees, Google is reportedly more enchanted with the advertising opportunities within mobile payments.

From The WSJ:

The Internet giant is aiming to make mobile payments easier in a bid to boost its advertising business. The planned payment system would allow Google to offer retailers more data about their customers and help them target ads and discount offers to mobile-device users near their stores, these people said. Google isn’t expected to get a cut of the transaction fees.

Google is not the only company chumming up to retailers for advertising profit. Last November, Visa cozied up with Gap Inc. to offer targeted text messaging, for example. In short, after consumers “opted in” to receiving Gap messages, Visa would watch their transaction histories. Based on those buying trends, targeted SMS text messages would shoot out to consumers, aiming to lure them to nearby Gap stores.

No doubt, this is only early stages of targeted mobile advertisements aimed at influencing customer behavior. With NFC’s eventual takeoff, the floodgates will truly open for Google, for Groupon, for the mobile networks, for FIs, and for many others as the blurring of the online/offline payments world gets more abstract. Today, Javelin Strategy & Research released a report addressing the mobile advertising opportunities for FIs specifically, and this quote sums it up well:

“Mobile marketing and advertising is poised to explode,” said Mark Schwanhausserm senior analyst of multi-channel financial services in a release. “Those FIs that understand mobile technologies, know how to deliver marketing programs and ads across these platforms, and produce compelling mobile marketing offers will be in the driver’s seat to capture the attention — and revenue — of their target customers.”

We agree.