Technolgy Rules: Google Pay rolls out support for peer-to-peer payments and mobile ticketing

Tuesday, July 10, 2018

Google Pay rolls out support for peer-to-peer payments and mobile ticketing

Google is making several updates to Google Pay, its recently-rebranded service for all its different payments tools. Most of these updates were announced earlier this year, but now, Google says they’re actually going live in the app.

One of the additions is peer-to-peer payments. You could already pay or request money from a friend through Google Pay Send, but as of today, you can also do it into the main Google Pay app.

Gerardo Capiel, Director of Product Management at Google Pay, noted that this makes it easier to split the bill with your friends — if you bought something with Google Pay, you can tap on the purchase and then request payment from up to five people.

Since Google is basically combining two apps, it sounds like Google Pay Send isn’t long for this world — as Capiel put it, “We want to basically bring everything into Google Pay,” but he said the timing is “TBD” on when Pay Send might be shut down.

The Google Pay app is also gaining the ability to save mobile tickets and boarding passes, to be found in a new Passes tab that will also include loyalty cards and gift cards. Ticketmaster and Southwest are supported at launch, and Google says it has plans to add Eventbrite, Singapore Airlines and Vueling.

Google pay

While some of Google Pay’s functionality (like the new Passes Tab) is limited to Android, Capiel said the goal is to support users on any platform. So you can also access Google Pay on the web and on an iOS app. Now Google says it’s making it easier to manage all your payment information across platforms, allowing users (for example) to update their payment info on the web and see it reflected in their app.

Looking ahead, Capiel said his team plans to add support for more ticketing partners, and also to launch the Google Pay app in more countries — particularly the ones where the service is already being used for online payments.

“We’re working to bring everything into the app,” he added. “Some things are a little trickier than others, for a number of reasons, but we will continue to make the experience as complete as possible.”