Google Wallet has made its official debut in India, with unique features tailored according to the Indian market. Unlike its global counterpart, the Indian version allows users to store essential cards, passes, tickets, keys or IDs securely.
The company has partnered with 20 prominent Indian brands, including Flipkart, Mcdonalds, Croma, Air India, Vistara, PVR, INOX, Lenskart and MakeMyTrip, among others.
The Wallet app is available to download from the Google Play Store, currently for Android users. While the Wallet app can store everyday essentials, it does not support payment, as Google Pay already handles transactions.
Users can easily add and store flight boarding passes, loyalty cards, gift cards from different brands, and even metro and bus tickets for quick access when needed.
Additionally, select corporate identity cards can also be stored in the wallet, allowing users to access and display them whenever required. If an individual has smart personalisation settings enabled in Gmail, tickets and passes will automatically appear in the Wallet. In this article, we’ll explain the functions of the Wallet app and how unique it is from the Pay app.
How to use Google Wallet:
- Download the Google Wallet app from the Play Store, where your Google account will be automatically linked with the app
- Open the app and select ‘Add to Wallet.’ You’ll have four options, Photo, Loyalty, Gift Card and Transport pass.
- Choose Photo to create a pass using any photo using a barcode or QR code.
- Use Loyalty to add digital copies of your loyalty points from various brands. The remaining two options are for adding gift cards and transport passes to your Wallet.
- Look for the ‘Add to Google’ button online or in other apps to directly add your boarding passes and tickets to the app.
- Users won’t be able to make digital payments using Google Wallet, as Google Pay already does the job.
The Wallet is designed to complement the existing payment app. Ram Papatla, GM and India Engineering Lead, Android at Google, clarified, “Google Pay is not going anywhere, it will remain our primary payment app, Google Wallet is specifically tailored for non-payment use cases.”
For those not aware, Google Wallet was originally launched in 2011 before merging with Android Pay in 2018 to form Google Pay. However, in India, Google introduced a separate app specifically for UPI payments called Tez, which was later rebranded as Google Pay. This led to the existence of two different Google Pay apps, one for India and another for the rest of the world.
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