Google Pay is being shut down in the US: Here’s why

Google Pay, one of the most popular payment portals in India, is surprisingly not as popular in other parts of the world. In western regions like the US, other payment platforms like Apple’s own Apple Pay are used more frequently. This is perhaps one of the reasons behind Google’s latest decision to shut down its own Google Pay service in the US.

As per the announcement, Google Pay will shut down in the US on June 4, 2024. Instead, Google Wallet, a separate app will become Google’s primary payment platform and wallet application for all Android phones. Here’s everything you need to know about it.

How does this affect Google Pay users in the US?

With the change, most of Google Pay’s features will come over to the Google Wallet app. However, the deals offered by Google Pay, as well as the peer-to-peer payment implementation (sending and receiving money between friends, family, etc) will not be carried over.

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It remains to be seen if Google will implement a peer-to-peer (P2P) payment mechanism inside Google Wallet later down the line, but for now, users will be able to link their credit and debit cards to Google Wallet.

How does this affect Google Pay users in India?

The change, at least for now, does not affect Google Pay and its users in India. With the app only being closed in the US, Google Pay will continue to function as usual in India. You will still be able to make UPI payments with the app, as well as link it to your credit cards if you have Android smartphones.

Meanwhile, the Google Wallet app continues to be unavailable for Indian users at the moment. However, whether Google will pull a similar move in India later down the line remains to be seen.

If Google decides to combine Google Pay with Google Wallet in India though, it will definitely have to first work on carrying over the P2P payment mechanism. This is because apart from UPI payments for merchants and businesses, P2P payments remains one of the most common use-cases for the app in India.

The confusing Google Wallet - Google Pay saga

Not many may know this, but Google Pay originally began as a part of the larger Google Wallet app. Google Wallet was one of the first apps to make contactless payments possible (and popular) among Android phones that supported NFC (Near Field Communication) which was somewhat a rare feature back in the day.

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Google Wallet was then combined with Android Pay to become Google Pay instead, which was later again rebranded to Google Wallet – this time leaving Google Pay as a separate app for users in countries like India and Singapore. Many Google Pay users in India who adopted the app early on will also remember a time when the app had a different name altogether, called Google Tez.

For users who are still using Google Pay in India, you can continue to do so without any short-term worries at least. In fact, Google recently also introduced the Google Pay SoundPod in India, a device that will help merchants and businesses get real-time audio alerts for quick payments, similar to the Paytm Soundbox.