How Google Wallet works

Nicola Ligas

Google Wallet replaced Google Pay. Starting today, all Android users should be able to update Google Pay, and after the update they will have the new Google Wallet in its place. So let’s find out what Google Wallet is and how it works, whose name will certainly not reach the ears of many new ones, because it is yet another re-brand that could create a bit of confusion.

What is Google Wallet

google wallet

Google Wallet was born in 2011 as Google’s payment service, active both on the web and on mobile. In 2015, however, Android Pay arrived, which is an official mobile payment app, and Wallet was left with the only function of sending and receiving money, limited, among other things, to the United States only.

In 2018, however, a unified payments service was launched, called Google Pay, which in fact again went to unify everything in a single application, thus incorporating both Wallet and Android Pay. Things went well for a couple of years, to the point that in 2020 Google Pay received a big update, the news of which, however, remained largely the prerogative (again) of the USA, in particular in relation to the exchange of money, which apparently it is a more complex function than the others, probably for fiscal / administrative issues.

Now things change again with Google Wallet replacing Google Pay. With the latest update, in distribution just as we are writing, Google Pay changes its name, graphics, icon and partly also functionality, and becomes (again) simply Wallet. To make things even more complicated, Google Wallet will be a separate app from Google Pay in the US and Singapore, unlike the rest of the world. The name Google Pay will not go completely to die therefore, and given the past history, it is not certain that in the future it will not be able to come back to us too.

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Google Wallet app in Italy

Today, Thursday 21 July 2022, Google is sending emails to its users in Italy inviting them to discover the new Google Wallet. In fact, net of the new graphics, not much will change, and the app itself will tell you this at the first start: “you can do what you’ve always done, but in an even easier way“. So let’s see what are the news of Google Wallet.

  • Payment card: exactly as before, with Wallet you can pay on the go wherever Google Pay is accepted.
  • Pass for public transport: not yet available in Italy (even if the option is present in the app), it will allow you to travel on public transport with an electronic ticket.
  • Loyalty cards: you can store the loyalty cards of many shops on your Wallet, so that you always have them at hand. Some examples are Conad, Decathlon, MediaWorld, Unieuro, OVS, Penny Market, Euronics, Trony, UCI Cinemas, and others.
  • Wrapping paper: Like loyalty cards, you can also add gift cards to the app, such as those from Amazon, Google and others.
  • Tickets for events, boarding passes and flight updates, digital car keys and other passes: you can add many different elements to Google Wallet, many of which are not yet available in Italy, and some even automatically, by activating, for example, the “intelligent functionality and customization“in Gmail. There is a dedicated button, very large, located at the bottom right of the main page of the app:” Add to Wallet “; it is impossible not to see it! Furthermore, Google has already published an extensive help page in Italianin case you have any doubts.

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The quantity and operation of all the passes that you can add varies with the passage of time, and can be customized within the Wallet app, as you can also see from the screenshot below. There is also one for managing pass data dedicated help pagebut above all there is another important option that you can activate or not, outside the Wallet app: the personalization in Google Pay (the rebranding is not yet complete).

Basically it’s about giving Google permission, or not, to save the information on the activities carried out in Wallet (such as transactions and forms of payment, the place of purchase and more) to personalize the user experience, perhaps by providing relevant information or by sending notifications for particular promotions in the vicinity of a given store. In any case, even without this information, all payment services work regularly, so this is an option that does not affect the effectiveness of Wallet, but only the way in which Google will be able to use the collected data.

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