Google Launches Google Wallet To Help You Store Your Credit Cards, Tickets and More

At its I/O developer conference, Google today launched Google Wallet, a new Android and Wear OS app that will allow users to store things like credit cards, loyalty cards, digital IDs, transit passes, concert tickets, vaccination cards and more. TechCrunch reports: That's pretty straightforward, but from here on out, it gets a bit confusing. [Back in 2018, Google Wallet was folded into Google Pay.] Currently, Google Pay is available in 42 markets, Google says. Because in 39 of those markets, Google Pay is still primarily a wallet, those users will simply see the Google Pay app update to the new Google Wallet app. But in the U.S. and Singapore, Google Pay will remain the payments-focused app while the Wallet app will exist in parallel to focus on storing your digital cards. Meanwhile, in India, Google says that 'people will continue to use their Google Pay app they are familiar with today.'

'The Google Pay app will be a companion app to the Wallet,' said Arnold Goldberg, the VP and GM of Payments at Google, who joined the company earlier this year after a long stint at PayPal. 'Think of [the Google Pay app] as this higher value app that will be a place for you to make payments and manage money, whereas the wallet will really be this container for you to store your payment assets and your non-payment assets.' Goldberg noted that Google decided to go this route because of the rapid digitization we've been seeing during the last two years of the pandemic.

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