Google will pay out $200,000 in cash to get people using Wallet for the holidays

Google said on its blog today that it will give five bucks when you get a friend to use its Wallet mobile payments platform.

“Simply send money (even a penny works) to a friend of yours who doesn’t have a Google Wallet Balance yet,” the blog reads. “When they claim the money and verify their identity, you’ll each receive $5 in your Wallet Balance within 3 business days.”

And you can do this for up to 20 friends, if you have that many. The promotion will go on until 20,000 referrals have been made, or until November ends, whichever comes first.

There are some rules, however. Both the sender and the receiver have to have a U.S. address (sorry Canada!). The sender must already have a sum of money in their Wallet (no you can’t adopt Wallet just to invite someone else). It has to be your friend’s first time creating a Wallet Balance.

The promotion comes just ahead of the holiday season when as many as a third of U.S. shoppers might be using Apple or Google mobile payments for shopping. The competition between the two payment platforms, and CurrentC, is expected to heat up in the coming years.