Steam Wallet Beta Now Available

The Steam Wallet, Steamworks’ newest feature, is now available for public testing. With Steam Wallet, you can add value to your Steam account using any of the payment methods supported by Steam. Funds in your Steam Wallet may then be used to buy any item available on the Steam store, or combined with other payment methods to make a purchase.

To check out the beta in Steam client simply click here:
steam://storeurl/steamaccount/addfunds

If you would like to test in your browser, please visit:
http://store.steampowered.com/steamaccount/addfunds/

To help Valve test this new feature, now in beta, click here and follow the instructions available there. Remember, even in beta, purchases are real (no refunds). You should only fund with money you actually plan to use on Steam. And as always, please report any feedback here on the forums.

Here are some of our concerns:

1) Where are the money stored? Is Steam suddenly a bank?

2) What security measures did Valve take to actually prevent hijacking accounts in order to steal money (imagine sending Steam funds to your friends in the future)?

I’m sure you guys will find a lot more concerns although it may lead to good stuff like Steam Cards being distributed very soon just like on iTunes (like cards worth $5, $10, $15 etc.).

Update:

Recent changes to the Steam Subscriber Agreement say that the funds cannot be transferred to a different account (or refunded, for that matter).

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