Google Pay Adds P2P And Mobile-Ticketing Features, But Google Pay Send Still Lives

Two previously announced features—support for person-to-person payments and a new tab for storing mobile tickets—went live Tuesday in Google Pay, Alphabet Inc.’s online and mobile-payments app.

The first is a peer-to-peer payment capability, formerly known as Google Wallet, that allows users to pay or request funds from other persons. This capability has been available through a separate app called Google Pay Send, which is still available in the Google Play app marketplace—but apparently not for long.

“In early 2018, we brought all of our products together under the Google Pay umbrella to simplify payments on Google, making it easier for people to buy with their Google accounts,” a spokesperson for Google, Mountain View, Calif.-based Alphabet’s primary subsidiary, tells Digital Transactions News by email. “Our goal is to provide a complete experience for users within the Google Pay app and online. The Google Pay Send app will be phased out at a later date.”

Google formally unveiled Google Pay in February as the successor to a series of contactless mobile-payment and P2P apps formerly branded as Android Pay, Google Wallet, and the original Google Checkout. In addition to unifying its branding, the search giant said it would gradually add features to the payment service over time.

The other new feature is a tab called Passes that allows users to store mobile tickets and boarding passes. The first supported companies are Ticketmaster and Southwest Airlines, according to the spokesperson. Coming soon are Eventbrite, Singapore Airlines, and the Spanish low-cost airlineVueling.

In addition, the spokesperson says Google Pay “is working to digitize mass-transit payments in major cities globally, including London, Madrid, Moscow, Tokyo, Sydney, and Las Vegas. With transit, users can buy tickets online, use their phone at the gate, and go.”

While Google Pay is most associated with smart phones running Google’s Android operating system, the spokesperson says the service also works on Apple Inc.’s iOS mobile operating system within certain Web browsers.