A few months ago the payment platform was restarted Google Pay Officially announce the change or integration into the new product google wallet Must bring. You can describe the whole thing as “back to the future,” because you’re launching a new product with an old brand and an old strategy. However, Google is leaving the back door open and the latest developments are once again riddled with obstacles.
The change from Google Pay to Google Wallet and the integration of Pay into the new Wallet product was officially announced by Google at the beginning of May after lengthy speculation. So far, not much has happened in this direction and Change at the top of Google Pay The change could have been paused again, but it is likely to follow the path taken for the time being.
Google Wallet has a very different approach than Google Pay, but both apps overlap so much in the payment area that they are integrated with each other. This means that you can continue to pay as usual with your credit card stored in Google Pay, regardless of the app’s logo or name. This is also possible because the payment infrastructure is deeply embedded in Android and basically doesn’t need an app at all.
The change is necessary because Google lost with the Google Pay split, but also because of other developments. Many physical objects are being digitized from the wallet and stored on the smartphone. Some of that fits with Google Pay, like loyalty cards, but other things stored in it (listed below) don’t want to get squished into the word “Pay.” In the “wallet” (wallet) that fit the most.
Google Wallet aims to digitize all the possible things in the wallet so that in the future you will only need your smartphone. This ranges from payment options to car keys to identity or vaccination certificates. Google has already announced the following things and promised more. They want to create ways for users to store things that Wallet doesn’t officially support. However, no details were provided.
This can be saved to your Google Wallet
- credit cards
- Boarding Permits / Travel Tickets
- loyalty cards
- event tickets
- car key
- Student ID cards
- vaccination certificate
- Driver’s license (later this year)
- Hotel key (coming soon)
- Office badges (coming soon)
This is too much. Credit cards are also managed with Wallet, but using your smartphone to pay at the supermarket remains the primary task of Google Pay. In this way, both products remain, even if in most cases the user will only interact with Wallet. The following Twitter animation nicely summarizes how to configure Google Wallet.
Phone, keys… Google Wallet. Coming soon to Android, Google Wallet gives you fast and secure access to all your daily essentials – including payment cards, boarding passes, vaccine cards, event tickets, and soon even your driver’s license. #GoogleIO pic.twitter.com/BJXKbykaSw
– google google) May 11 2022
But that doesn’t mean Google is now cleaning up and has only one app worldwide again. Instead, there are still three different configurations, but at least we German-speaking users belong to the rest of the world this time, which is the absolute majority.
Google Pay will become a Google Wallet in almost every country in the world where Pay was previously possible to use. In the USA, on the other hand, Google Wallet and GPay will continue to exist in parallel. Apparently they are still pursuing some plans with GPay that can’t be squeezed into the wallet payment corset. The question is: If this works, will things soon change again in the rest of the world? A missed opportunity in my opinion. And India is another chapter of its own, because there is no wallet in the subcontinent.
It remains to be seen how successful this reboot will be. I can imagine many users won’t be excited about Wallet at first. Because by default they only have their credit card, which they suddenly need two apps to manage. But Wallet must also fill itself with reservations, tickets, accept customer cards, and save other things. After a certain transition period, it may have been worth it, and Google is on the right track with Apple’s recipe in this area.
According to the announcement at the time, the switch from Google Pay to Google Wallet was supposed to begin in the following weeks, but little has happened in that direction so far.
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