Anúncios
Consumer adoption of digital payments and digitization has accelerated since the pandemic. It has gone from a nice-to-have experience – or one required by tech-savvy users – to being par for the course expected for most people.
Anúncios
According to Counterpoint Research, in 2023, of the 152 million smartphones shipped in the country, 140 million will be powered by Android. Considering that India is primarily an Android market and Google Pay’s massive success in the country, it’s surprising that it took Google almost two years after the app was relaunched as a digital wallet platform in the US to finally launch Google Wallet in India. But here we are.
What is a digital wallet?
A digital wallet service, like Google Wallet on Android, allows users to store and access their boarding passes, loyalty and gift cards, event tickets, and similar things you need on your person in most cases.
In India, for example, Google Wallet will work with a host of services.
Anúncios
- PVR Inox, allowing users to seamlessly add movie and event tickets.
- Airlines like Air India, Air India Express and online travel companies like MakeMyTrip, Ixigo and Easemytrip to help travelers store and access their boarding passes easily.
- Hyderabad Metro, Kochi Metro, VRL Travels and Abhibus to help purchase and save public transport tickets.
- Flipkart, Dominos, Shoppers Stop and a host of loyalty program supported brands enable Pinelabs, EasyRewardz and Twid to store and use digital copies of their loyalty and gift cards.
Of course, more local integrations will come over time. Additionally, for an unsupported service or business, you can always create a pass manually from images containing a barcode or QR code.
Google has also partnered with system integrators Wavelynx and Alert Enterprise to bring your corporate badge to Google Wallet (if your organization implements it, that is) to make workplace access more convenient.
Google App Store
If you’re of a certain vintage of the Internet, you’ll remember Google’s struggles with messaging apps — lots of apps doing the same thing and lots of branding. From Google Talk to Google Voice to Hangouts to Allo to Duo and now, Google Meet (along with Google Messages on Android, of course).
When it comes to digital wallets, things haven’t been so bad, but they’ve had a bumpy ride.
The original Google Wallet app was launched in 2011 for the company’s Nexus series of smartphones. Then, in 2015, Google launched Android Pay for a broader payment system for the platform.
In what seemed like a good idea, by 2018, Google consolidated the two services to introduce the Google Pay brand. It was a digital payment app at first, but over time it evolved into a full digital wallet that allows users to store boarding passes, loyalty cards, reservation information and tickets, and government IDs.
But away from Mountain View at the same time, Google renamed Tez, a payments app launched in India a year ago, to Google Pay. So we had two different apps – with the same name but for different markets. The Google Pay app in India was built on top of UPI while the original Google Pay app was built for another peer-to-peer payment system and to enable Tap & Pay payments with stored credit cards.
In a culmination of this roller coaster, in 2022, Google entered the entire Google Wallet brand, and Google Pay will be shut down next month. Except for India (and Singapore), that is. While the company has launched Google Wallet in India, Google Pay lives exclusively for digital payments. In India, “Wallet is specifically designed to think about non-payment use cases,” said Ram Papatla, India general manager and engineering lead for Android at Google at a press conference in New Delhi on May 8.
Google’s two-pronged strategy is akin to keeping a card case and a money clip in your pocket and pulling one out as needed. I wish Google would allow credit cards in Wallet (while keeping UPI in Google Pay) to provide an experience similar to what is offered globally.
View full image
Getting started with the application
Once you download the Google Wallet app from the Play Store (Google Wallet isn’t available for iOS), getting started is pretty simple.
Tap Add to Wallet to select Photo to create a manual pass, Loyalty to earn and use your rewards and points, Gift Card to purchase and pay with a card gift and “Carrying case” to add. transit passes.
Once you add your loyalty card or gift card to Wallet, you’ll see your points balance and matching loyalty on other Google services like Maps and so on, too.
Google Wallet integrates with other Google products for an even more seamless experience. If you own a Pixel device, for example, take a screenshot of your boarding pass and tap Add to Google Wallet. Pro tip: You can add Google Wallet as a lock screen shortcut, allowing quick and easy access. If you have smart personalization settings enabled in Gmail, tickets and passes received from a select group of partners will automatically appear in your Google Wallet. If you receive an email with flight delay information, the app will notify you and change the stored boarding pass information.
Google Wallet stores your information securely with simple privacy controls to protect your personal information. Of course, Android’s built-in security features like 2-step verification, Find My Phone, and remote data wipe provide a greater sense of security over it.
The app is intuitive, with a straightforward user experience. I really like how the home screen has a carousel of all the passes straight up, so you can swipe and drag what you need right away. It’s similar to opening your physical wallet and selecting the card you want to use.
Adding new permissions is also a hassle-free exercise. While Google only talked about a set of marquee partners at launch, if you dig deep, you’ll find a long list of Indian businesses listed with supported loyalty and gift cards, making it a useful app for a diverse group. of users.
Competition
Samsung Wallet, formerly known as Samsung Pay, is a one-stop digital wallet and payment app with comprehensive localization for the Indian market.
It can store credit and debit cards that can be used to make payments through Tap & Pay at PoS machines in India and supports UPI for mobile payments. Apart from payments, Samsung Wallet can store a user’s Aadhaar, driving licence, PAN, Covid-19 vaccination certificate (via CoWIN) and vehicle registration certificates. You can also buy gift cards and coupons from Samsung Wallet. It also allows users to import boarding passes for flights and train tickets by importing the PDF file or scanning the QR code.
Samsung Wallet is a complete app that offers a complete digital wallet experience with a great integration with Samsung Galaxy watches. However, it is exclusive to Samsung smartphones.
There’s also the Apple Wallet app for iPhone users, though there aren’t many local integrations in India. Nor does it support Apple Pay, the company’s contactless payment service, in India. That said, last year, multiple reports suggested that Apple has engaged with Indian authorities and several banks to pave the way for Apple Pay to launch in India in the future.
A recent update to the Google Wallet app appears to have added support for .pkpass files, which will allow users to import passes from Apple Wallet. The most popular applications and services globally use this format to provide digital tickets and passes.
Overall, Google Wallet is a well-designed app that adds convenience to our digital lives. From using the app occasionally in the US, I’ve also noticed that Google has continued to progressively add features to support more use cases and businesses, which is a good thing.
However, unlike Samsung Wallet, it’s not a one-stop “wallet” (in India, that is) as you have to rely on another app, like Google Pay, for digital transactions. While Samsung outdoes Google on this point, the fact that Google Wallet is available for all Android phones across price segments will ensure that the latter finds more users.
Abhishek Baxi is a technology journalist and digital consultant.
#Google #Wallet #Review #Convenience #Step #Digital #Lives
Image Source : www.livemint.com
