Google Pay will, however, still be available for users in India and Singapore due to the ‘unique’ needs of the two countries.
What’s The Difference Between Google Pay And Google Wallet?
Well, it’s more than just a different name. For one thing, Wallet doesn’t support peer-to-peer payments or the ability to manage your balance or find offers and deals. If you need to transfer a Google Pay balance to a bank account after June 4, you’ll have to complete the task via the Google Pay website. As for offers and deals, Google says you’ll need to open up Search to access them after the switch is complete.
It’s not all bad news, though. Google Wallet does carry some advantages, such as storing digital items such as driver’s licenses, transit cards, state IDs, boarding passes, and more. And, of course, you can still use it to tap and pay while shopping.
Switching to Wallet has advantages, but it’s a shame that Google didn’t incorporate peer-to-peer payments and the deals/offers features into the app instead of pointing toward other, less convenient methods.
Why Is Google Doing This?
We all know that Google likes to fiddle with its offerings. Google Pay was once Android Pay (2015) and even started out as, you guessed it, Google Wallet back in 2011. Google says that the Google Wallet app is already used five times more than the Google Pay app when tapping to pay in US stores, so that’s probably why the decision has been made to switch and, erm, simplify.
Hopefully, this simplification of payment apps in the US will stick around for longer than a year, but we all know about Google’s proclivity for rebranding its apps and services, so I’m not going to put a bet on that. Perhaps we should have a bingo card with the names that Google might rebrand Wallet in the future. Android Pay, or Gemini Pay, an AI-based payment app that spends your money for you, could be next. Who knows. Let us know your guesses in the comments below.
