Google Wallet App Launched in India, Will Operate Alongside Google Pay

Google Wallet was launched by the company in India on Wednesday. The app is designed to store boarding passes, loyalty and gift cards, event passes, car keys, and transit tickets. The app can also digitise certain physical documents and store them for easy access. While the company previously unified its payment and wallet apps in other markets, it has confirmed that the Google Wallet app will exist alongside the Google Pay app in India, which will continue to handle payments via the NPCI’s UPI network and supported bank cards.

At a launch event on Wednesday, the company announced that the Google Wallet app will be available to download on Android smartphones via the Google Play store in India. The app was spotted on the Play Store last month, along with screenshots that hinted at support for various features in India, such as storing and displaying flight tickets, loyalty cards, event tickets, and transit cards.

Google says that it has partnered with over 20 companies in India, including PVR, Inox, Air India, Indigo, Flipkart, MakeMyTrip, Easemytrip, Ixigo, and Pine Labs. The company will also add support for more companies over the coming months. 

According to the company, users will be able to add movie and event tickets from PVR and Inox to Google Wallet. Meanwhile, mobile boarding passes can also be added to Google Wallet for easy access — the app currently supports Air India and Air India Express flights, via firms like MakeMyTrip, Easemytrip, and Ixigo. Users will also be able to access transit cards for services such as Kochi Metro, Hyderabad Metro, VRL Travels, and Abhibus via the app.

The Google Wallet app will also allow Indian users to scan physical documents, such as luggage tags, parking receipts, and printed airline boarding passes, using a QR code or barcode. Corporate badges can also be added to Google Wallet, as the company has partnered with integrators like Wavelynx and Alert Enterprise.

If users have smart personalisation settings enabled in Gmail, the Google Wallet app will automaticaly fetch and display IPL, movie, and train tickets using the event confirmation mailed to the user, according to the company. The Google Wallet app will also let users access digital versions of their loyalty cards for Flipkart, Dominos, and Shoppers Stop.

It’s worth noting that unlike global markets, where the company has unified its payments apps, the Google Wallet and Google Pay apps will continue to work independently of each other in India. While the Google Wallet app will offer access to all the features mentioned above, access to UPI payments and contactless payments (tap-to-pay) using supported bank cards will be available via Google Pay in India.