Google Wallet could bring back location-based loyalty cards with Android 14

Ben Schoon | Apr 14 2023 - 8:34 am PT

A long-missed feature may be making a comeback. As hinted at by Android 14’s first beta, there’s a good chance that Google Wallet could revive support for location-based loyalty cards in the future.

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The new Google Wallet launched last year replaced Google Pay, which replaced Android Pay, which, way back in 2014, replaced the original Google Wallet. And back then, with that original version, Google offered a feature that allowed users to store their loyalty cards and automatically send notifications to access them when they were in a store where the cards were accepted.

It was a very useful feature, but it was stripped away through the product’s many revisions, and it simply isn’t available today in Google Wallet.

Now, it seems like Google is laying the foundation for this feature, or at least a similar one, to return.

As uncovered in the documentation for the Android 14 beta by Mishaal Rahman, there’s a new feature that Google refers to as “FEATURE_WALLET_LOCATION_BASED_SUGGESTIONS.” What’s being developed here is quite clear from that name, but Google goes on to explain:

Feature for getSystemAvailableFeatures() and hasSystemFeature(String): The device supports showing location-based suggestions for wallet cards provided by the default payment app.

As a system feature, this would allow Google Wallet and potentially other wallet apps to use your location to show loyalty cards and perhaps even specific credit cards. It’s not clear if this will mimic the original functionality of sending notifications, but even if cards are simply reorganized when in the store, it would be quite the upgrade over today’s scrolling list. Rahman also brings out the possibility of this feature allowing the Quick Access Wallet found in the Quick Settings as somewhere this could appear, as that feature also now shows support for “non-payment cards” in Android 14.