As part of the company’s payments rebrand, Google Pay will gain the ability to send and request money in the “next few months.” Until then, the dedicated Google Wallet app is gaining its own minor redesign, with the app now rolling out in the Play Store and live on the iOS App Store.
Following the debut of its Pixel lineup, Google has really started to place more emphasis on its own name in branding. Recently, the company announced that it would be merging its payment options under the same roof with “Google Pay,” and that officially starts today.
Google is kicking off the year in product announcements with a merger of Android Pay and Google Wallet. Google Pay will be the new moniker for both products going forward as the company aims to make payment experiences “simpler, safer, and more consistent.”
Google Wallet may not be the center for phone-based payments as it once was, but it’s still a great way to exchange money between friends. The quick and easy interface is great for sending and requesting funds, and Google is now adding a new feature to make requesting cash a bit quicker and easier.
Back in October, Project Fi added group plans that are ideal for families and feature straightforward management tools. The Google MVNO is now simplifying the payment portion of shared plans with automatic share calculation, reminders, and simple repayment options.
After originally being Google’s source for NFC payments, Google Wallet has given up that role to Android Pay and transitioned to be an alternative to PayPal. From mobile, this has been pretty easy with Google Wallet’s fantastic Android and iOS apps. Now the web app has caught up…
Google’s Android Pay mobile payment service has been decidedly more restrictive since day one, all in the name of security. How so? Android Pay has always relied on a connection with a supported bank, leaving many other users out of Google’s favor.
With the mass distribution of NFC chips (and even fingerprint readers) in most phones, mobile payments are becoming increasingly popular.
Google‘s own Android Pay — as well as a series of other services, like Samsung‘s — has been live for some time in the US, and it looks like Uber is now sending emails out to customers regarding their own implementation of the payments service…
Update: It’s confirmed. Google is now sending the below email to users who have a card.
A new app teardown from Android Police today reveals that the Google Wallet card — which was first announced in November 2013 after many rumors of the troubled project being scrapped — is now finally getting the boot effective June 30th. The card assumably never really took off, and it seems that I’m one of the rare few that still has one of these little now-souvenirs…
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While Google has shifted its focus to Android Pay for contactless payments, Google Wallet has needed to reinvent itself somewhat as a peer-to-peer payment system. With the latest update, it’s become a whole lot easier to send money to your friends, family and contacts.
From today, the updated app on both iOS and Android will let you send money to anyone on your contact list, even if you don’t have their email address. You can send money to them using their phone number, and it’s secure and fast.
If you’re an Android Pay holdout, you might have found this morning that tap and pay has stopped working with the old Google Wallet app. Google has been warning users since Android Pay first became available three weeks ago that they need to update to the new app to keep using tap and pay, and now the Mountain View company is requiring it…
This is unfortunate for users who prefer to keep their device rooted for a variety of reasons. While rooted devices worked fine with tap and pay through Google Wallet, Android Pay — touting its high levels of security and all — doesn’t play along very well. The new Google Wallet app doesn’t offer tap and pay functionality at all.
If you’re seeing this message and need to update to Android Pay, head over to the Play Store. And if you’re looking for the new Google Wallet (which is available through a completely new listing), you can find that over at Google Play as well.
Update: Google has officially announced the new app.
Today, we’re announcing a new Google Wallet app — now focused exclusively on sending and receiving money. You can use Google Wallet with your Android or iOS device to send money to anyone in the US with an email address, even if they are not a Wallet user. And now, when you receive money through Google Wallet, you can quickly cash out to a debit card or linked bank account.
Google today unexpectedly released a new Google Wallet app on the Play Store. Instead of updating the original Wallet app, the company released an entirely new app with an entirely new interface. At this point, it appears that the original Wallet app will be converted to Android Pay when it launches, while Wallet itself will live on in the form of today’s new app.
Update: Google has posted a vague tweet to its Android account on Twitter, presumably in response to these reports. It simply says to “stay tuned” and ends with a #soon hashtag. Hard to draw many assumptions.
Android Pay will not go live today despite signals of otherwise from major fast-food chain Subway, and a purported leaked staff memo from McDonald’s, TechCrunch is now reporting.
Is it happening again? It might be happening again. Verizon Wireless is still evaluating whether or not to support Samsung’s soon-to-be-launched mobile payments service, Samsung Pay, on its devices, according to a representative we spoke with from the company.
Rite Aid was on the side of the slightly-more-retailer-friendly CurrentC for quite a while, but today the company announced that it will begin supporting mobile payment systems — the ones that some people actually use — on August 15th.
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Google this evening has started rolling out an update to the stable channel of Chrome OS that bumps it to version 43.0.2357.81. The update brings a handful of new features that are certain to please Chrome OS users. First off, Chrome OS can now autofill credit card information from Google Wallet to browser fields that ask for such information. Other browsers, such as Safari on OS X, offer features similar to this.
Most of the money transfer services that have popped up in Silicon Valley over the last several years don’t directly offer any federal-level insurance, and Google Wallet—until today—was a pretty good example. But now, according to a report from Yahoo Finance, Google is adding FDIC insurance to the money you keep in your Wallet Balance by storing your funds in various FDIC-insured banking institutions…
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Google announced today that it has started rolling out an update to Google Wallet on Android with a couple of notable new features. First off, Wallet on Android now packs Google Maps integration. With this integration, you can see exactly where you performed any given transaction on an embedded map. This feature, Google says, will make it easier to notice any sort of suspicious activity that occurs.
Hot on the heels of unveiling the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge, Samsung has also announced its venture into the mobile payment industry. Cleverly dubbed Samsung Pay, the initiative will be compatible with both of the company’s latest flagship devices. Samsung Pay will launch in the United States and South Korea this summer, with Europe and China support to come at a later date.
Google is planning to overhaul its mobile payment system in May during its I/O developer conference, a new report suggests. Google recently purchased “some” technology from SoftCard, with several major US carriers planning to pre-load Wallet on all new phones in the coming months.
The revitalized payment software is being referred to as “Android Pay” by Ars Technica, and like Apple’s own similarly named product, it will support payments in physical retailers as well as in-app sales. The entire offering will take advantage of Host Card Emulation, which essentially presents the phone to an NFC terminal as a clone of the card.
According to a report out of The Wall Street Journal, Google is currently working to boost its Wallet payment service in order to keep up with Apple Pay. Citing “people familiar with the matter,” the report claims that Google is currently in talks with carriers, banks, and device makers about reviving Wallet. The company currently plans to launch its new service at Google I/O in late May, according to the report.
As Apple took the mobile payments market by storm last year with the introduction and hard push of Apple Pay into retailers, Google has started looking beyond its Google Wallet offering to provide new ways for people to pay for things with their Android phones.
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Samsung is planning to launch its own mobile payment service next year, in competition to both Google Wallet and Apple Pay, reports Re/code. It suggests that the company is in talks with LoopPay, a startup which describes itself as “the most accepted mobile wallet on the planet.”
The technology would allow people with certain Samsung phones to pay in the vast majority of brick and mortar stores by waving their phones instead of swiping with a credit card or cash […]
The talks between Samsung and LoopPay come as the idea of paying for goods in stores using a phone was rekindled in the U.S. thanks to the launch of Apple Pay.
The plan would allow Samsung’s mobile payment service to work with all cards and all payment terminals right out of the box …
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Apple Pay may be grabbing all the mobile payment attention right now, but Google isn’t neglecting its iPhone-owning Google Wallet users. It’s just updated its iOS app to support Touch ID, add optimization for the iPhone 6/Plus and enable users to split bills between friends.
One thing it can’t yet do, however, is allow contactless payment on the iPhone. Apple is for now keeping access to the NFC chip on the phone all to itself, so Touch ID only logs you into the Google Wallet app.
Version 8.174.19 of Google Wallet also allows access to loyalty and gift cards while offline. The app is a free download from iTunes.
It was last month revealed that Google Wallet appears to be benefiting from the publicity generated by Apple for mobile payment solutions, the number of users doubling since Apple Pay was launched. The company also launched a ‘Buy with Google’ promotion offering discounts at 14 different retailers if you use their app and pay with Google Wallet.
