South Africans likely aren’t too familiar with Google Pay, which is the Mountain View giant’s take on instant payments which local banks and the likes of Samsung Pay have only recently cottoned on to. Abroad, the feature – available on most Android smartphones, iOS devices and Wear OS watches – is a ubiquitous means of payment and is the firm’s answer to Cupertino’s Apple Pay.
Today, Google has upped its game with a monumental update designed to evolve the service from a tap-to-pay card offering into an offering that combines three key elements, which the company terms Pay, Explore, and Insights.
In terms of top-level features, the revised Google Pay takes some pages from Gmail’s playbook; should users enable the option, Pay can now crawl both Gmail and Photos to log receipts, wherein OCR technology auto-scans the information theirein and tracks your finances accordingly. In 2021, the company has promised that users will even be able to use a checking and saving account within the app under the banner of a new feature called “Plex”.
Under the Pay tab, Google Pay will offer tap-to-pay and peer-to-peer payment features, and will also empower users to set up group payments. Users will also be able to see payments to once-off recipients made through the service as well as view rewards points.
The Explore tab is where Pay will depict deals that aggregate to your personal shopping activity over time, and at launch will work on a three-month trial period largely due to privacy concerns. Deals can include cashback offers, and, through a built-in QR code scanner, users can scan a product and search for it on Google Shopping to find alternative prices.
Lastly, Insights shows data drawn from banking and credit accounts and uses that information to deliver reports of your saving and spending habits, and can further track upcoming bills.
While the update is set to launch in the United States and other territories in short order, the service has yet to make landfall in South Africa. While other competitors such as Samsung Pay have been quick to land on our shores and the oft-rumoured Huawei Pay lurking in the midst, it remains to be seen whether Google will deign to bring the platform to our country.
What are your thoughts? Would you use Google Pay? Let us know in the comments below.
