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Comment by happymellon | Hacker News Reader

Wait a minute, I thought Google Pay was the android wallet for storing cards to make purchased via tapping your phone/watch.

This talks about having a balance, does Google Pay offer accounts in the US, or am I getting myself mixed up with another product?

[Edit] I don't think I'm getting mixed up.

https://pay.google.com/about/

> Google Pay is the fast, simple way to pay on sites, in apps, and in stores using the cards saved to your Google Account.

Google Wallet appears to expose Google Pay on Android devices, but is just an interface to Google Pay.

It used to be the Google Pay app but was rebranded as Google Wallet. And Google Pay app is something else?

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There's the Google Pay service that processes payments.

There's the old Google Pay app that got rebranded as Google Wallet.

And then there's a newer Google Pay app available only in the US, Singapore, and India. This is the one getting shutdown.

And a very helpful chart: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Googlepayments.svg

Jesus Christ that chart. What is going on over at Google???

That weird fork the second from the right was from when Google was aspiring to become a bank... or at least partner with one, to offer credit cards.

The far right branch is the "Next Billion Users" stream that launched Tez, which at the time was explicitly and solely for the Indian market, but since it was superior to the Google Wallet/Pay at the time, the VP lead decided to aim for global adoption, which was the previous Pay-->Wallet-->Pay nonsense a couple years ago. That has failed, so now everything is reverting back to the original/primary branch on the far left, which is and has always been, owned by the Android team.

Payments are the new chat.

Once the Supreme Court ruled that money is speech, this was the next logical step.

A fat monopoly and a bunch of unaligned bullshit besides that.

Like its all middle management machiavellianism at this s point.

I think the wallet is Google Wallet. Very confusing, I know.

The notice on the Wikipedia article for "Google Wallet" is telling:

> This article is about the mobile app introduced in 2022. For the discontinued service of the same name, see Google Wallet (2011–2018).

> "Google Pay (2018–2022)" redirects here. For the 2020 app, see Google Pay (mobile app).

Yeah the split it up. I am pretty sure this is the Vemo like service of being able to send money to other people.

Ah the old axiom that you only discover Google offers product X on the day they EOL it.

The banking system in the US is so messed up, and Venmo is so hostile.

Here in the UK I can just send people money immediately, and been able to do that for decades.

Same here (Swish), we've got great authentication as well (BankID)

It's deliberately messed up in order to make more profit if you're a bank. UK has proper electronic funds transfer because the culture accepts government telling big business to do stuff for the public benefit. US political corruption and culture precludes that.

I think it's worse than that.

My bank offers a US routing and account number so that Americans can transfer money, since the banks over there struggle with international payments.

I then found out that my in-laws still can't transfer money because their bank has removed the ability to send money to another account that isn't via Venmo.

It's not "messed up" it's hostile.

The US has that too, it's just decades late. FedNOW is being rolled out this year

From their website in the UK

https://pay.google.com/about/

--------

Google Pay is the fast, simple way to pay on sites, in apps, and in stores using the cards saved to your Google Account.

:Add a card to Google Pay:

And download Google Wallet to pay with your Android device.

----

I think Google Wallet is just the Android app to use Google Pay and you use it to save cards *to* Google Pay. They even have a link to "Add a card to Google Pay". Pretty sure a couple of years ago Google Wallet was called Google Pay, but they renamed it. Presumably for whatever service Google Pay App is.

Really confusing. Classic Google.

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