Google has launched a new payment processing service called Google Checkout today. With Google Checkout you can ‘quickly and easily buy from stores across the web and track all your orders and shipping in one place’

The site offers fraud protection covering you against unauthorized purchases made through Google Checkout and Spam protection using the same technology used within the Googles Gmail service.

Web sites and merchants can integrate Google Checkout into their sites as an alternative payment processing method to existing checkout and credit card processing systems, said Salar Kamangar, vice president of product management at Google.

Consumers with a Google account can type their credit card and billing information into Google Checkout once and then pay for purchases thereafter with practically one click on any Web site that features the system, Kamangar said. As things now stand, he said, “If I buy five things from five different merchants I have to fill out five different forms.

This process can take three, four, five minutes” for each form. Google Checkout is meant to change that.

Merchants using the system will be charged a processing fee of 20 cents per transaction, plus 2.2 percent of the relevant purchase price.

For me this looks like pretty good news. I’m still pretty pro google at the moment and this service could prove a real alternative to services offered by the likes of Paypal.

The charging structure looks similar but the customer service normally offered by the folks at Google should far surpass that offered by Paypal and some of the other operators I could mention.

The recent news about Paypals site being hijacked and similar negative press could well push people towards the more trusted google brand.

Googles massive profile will add increased competition in the world of online checkouts so it won’t surprise me if Paypal start to pull their socks up a little, lower their charges or add some other quirky value add for users who continue to stick with their service.

It’ll be interesting to see how things pan out over the next few months.