Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

And if Verizon hands over control of the SE built into its phone to Google Wallet, it would have to add another SE to run ISIS or its own payments system.

That’s not actually such a big deal. A report earlier this year from ABI Research said that by 2016, almost half (41 percent) of NFC-equipped phones will have more than one SE inside. Some of those will be built into the phones; others will come in the form of SIMs or microSD cards. All the SEs can use the same NFC chip, and (unless someone botches the software) there’s no reason any of them should conflict with the others.

But there’s only one SE in the phone Verizon is about to ship. And Verizon isn’t likely to just hand over the keys to Google.

At the same time, Verizon can’t just refuse to deal with Google. That would open the door to the sort of ugly fight—and probable government scrutiny—that neither Verizon nor Google wants right now. That’s why Verizon also said this week that it’s “continuing our commercial discussions with Google on this issue.” That’s “commercial” as in “money can’t buy happiness, but it can probably buy a second SE.”

Is Google likely to cough up cash for control of a Verizon phone’s SE? It might be. Verizon can actually put an SE on the SIM that goes into the phone, and then use that when ISIS goes live sometime next year. That would free up the phone’s built-in SE for Google. Or Verizon might prefer (or be contractually obligated) to keep the built-in SE available for ISIS, which would mean it would take a lot of Google cash to break the logjam.

(Putting Google Wallet on this Verizon phone would have been a lot simpler for Google if the phone’s designers had built a microSD slot into it, so yet another SE could be easily installed. Unfortunately, the Galaxy Nexus has no microSD slot. Who was responsible for that oversight? This phone was designed by Samsung—and Google.)

In the end, there probably won’t be a big battle over Verizon’s phone and Google Wallet. With enough technology and enough money, there’s plenty of room on these phones for both Google and ISIS. And they’ve both poured enough resources into their mobile wallet efforts that they can’t afford to annoy customers or regulators—or retailers—any more than necessary.