All About Google's New Wallet App That's Launched In India India now has the new Wallet app from Google, which it announced on Wednesday. Google Wallet serves as a central location for customers' everyday essentials by storing tickets, cinema tickets, loyalty cards, and digital auto keys.

By Kavya Pillai

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India now has the new Wallet app from Google, which it announced on Wednesday. Google Wallet serves as a central location for customers' everyday essentials by storing tickets, cinema tickets, loyalty cards, and digital auto keys. It is essentially an app to store digital information.

At a press conference in New Delhi, Google's Ram Papatla, General Manager and India Engineering Lead for Android, stated, "We've focused on just making sure the journey from paper to digital is seamless." To start, Google has brought on 20 partners, including BMW, MakeMyTrip, PVR Inox, Air India, and Shoppers Stop. In the future, more partners will be added.

However, in India, Google Wallet will be used for non-payment uses. That means Google Pay, a digital wallet and payment platform from Google, will coexist alongside the Wallet app in India. "Google Pay is not going anywhere," Papatla said. "Google Pay is our primary payments use case and it solves all payment needs in India. Wallet is specifically tailored for non-payment use cases."

The newly released Google Wallet software ought to be accessible for download right now if you use an Android device. It is not in Google's intentions to release the Wallet app for the iPhone.

With more than a decade of existence, Google Wallet has undergone numerous modifications. Google Wallet was the company's first mobile payment program, released back in 2011. It let Android users pay at specific stores by tapping their compatible phones against readers. But it was limited to using it with the Nexus phone.

Android Pay took over as Google Wallet's replacement in 2015. Google stated in 2018 that Google Wallet and Android Pay would merge to form Google Pay. Peer-to-peer internet payments and contactless payments in-store were combined into one app with this service.

India is a significant market for search, payments, and apps, according to Google. In fact, Google's Android mobile operating system powers over 97% of all cellphones in India.Google has no plans to monetise the Wallet app in India, at least for now.

Kavya Pillai

Former Correspondent

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