“Google is launching a new Google Wallet app on Android and Wear OS, looking to streamline its payments products and lock users into Android more tightly. The move is part of a broader effort by tech giants Google and Apple to bind consumers more closely into their mobile devices by making the digital wallet as essential to consumers’ everyday lives as the physical wallet. That means making the digital wallet not just a way to pay at the point of sale with a credit card but also use tickets, IDs and other essential items. The new Google Wallet, announced Wednesday at Google I/O and available sometime in early summer, will handle all credit and payment cards as well as nonpayment items you would have in your physical wallet, such as driver’s licenses or state IDs, library cards, concert tickets, boarding passes, vaccine cards and loyalty cards. Google is also working on supporting other pass types, like hotel keys and office badges.”

“Google will roll out virtual credit cards for Pay on Chrome and Android later this year, in an effort to better protect users’ financial information during online transactions. Virtual cards are randomly generated 15 or 16 digit numbers that can be used to obscure your true card information when making online payments. The idea is that if a business you transact with has a data breach or suffers a cyberattack, hackers will only be able to swipe your “virtual” number, not your real one. There are a number of companies, like Blur, Stripe, and banks, that provide these kinds of services—often for a price.”

“Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O) Google said on Thursday it plans to allow third-party payment systems in South Korea to comply with a new law, marking the first time the U.S. tech giant has amended its payment policy for a specific country. Google’s announcement comes after a Korea Communications Commission’s (KCC) request for Google and Apple Inc (AAPL.O) to come up with compliance plans for the new law, which bans major app store operators from forcing software developers to use their payments systems. Most of the new law went into effect in mid-September.”

“According to a new report from 9to5Google (Google does not seem to have a blog post about this yet), starting this week, US Android users can request a “Google Pay Balance Card” that will allow them to spend their Google Pay balance directly on purchases…The new Google Pay card is a virtual Visa debit card that you can set as an NFC card, so now spending that money a friend sent you is as easy (and presumably quick) as setting your Google Pay balance as your NFC card and tapping your phone against a store payment terminal.”

“Google announced it’s partnering with Shopify, giving the e-commerce platform’s more than 1.7 million merchants the ability to reach consumers through Google Search and its other services. The integration will allow merchants to sign up in just a few clicks to have their products appear across Google’s 1 billion “shopping journeys” that take place every day through Search, Maps, Images, Lens and YouTube. The company didn’t offer extensive details about the integration when it was announced during Google’s I/O Developer event…But the news follows a series of updates to Google Shopping resulting from Amazon’s increased investment in its own advertising business , which threatens Google’s core ads business.”

“Last year, we launched a reimagined Google Pay to be a safe, simple and helpful way to pay and manage your finances. The app is full of ways to pay friends and businesses, save with offers and rewards and stay on top of your money. Today, we are announcing three ways to help you save money on groceries, pay for transit fares in more cities and better understand your spending.”

“Google has joined with secure element (SE) vendors to launch the Android Ready SE Alliance to accelerate the adoption of new use cases for Android devices including digital car keys and mobile IDs. The alliance is creating and rolling out a set of open source, validated and ready-to-use SE applets for use in conjunction with tamper-resistant hardware, including a general availability version of the Android StrongBox for SE keystore implementation.”

“The new Google Pay app came out of beta this week, and it marks the first step in a major upheaval in the Google Pay service. Existing Google Pay users are about to go through a transition reminiscent of the recent move from Google Music to YouTube Music: Google is killing one perfectly fine service and replacing it with a worse, less functional service. The fun, confusing wrinkle here is that the new and old services are both called “Google Pay.” Allow us to explain.”

“Android users in regions other than the UK, Ireland, France and Brazil will soon be able to find and download real-money gambling apps from the Play Store. Google has updated its program policy allowing apps that “enable or facilitate online gambling” in 15 more countries, including the US, starting on March 1st.”

“Google Pay already works with about 3,000 partners, but that doesn’t hinder it from continuing to support more banks and credit unions. After adding 89 financial institutions to the list last month, the mobile payment service just added another 67 just in the US.”

“Today, Google Pay for both Android and iOS is relaunching with a giant array of new features. It turns the app from something that most people think of as a tap-to-pay card repository or peer-to-peer payment system into a much more ambitious service. The new app begins rolling out across the United States today.”

“Flagship smartphones have gotten substantially more expensive in the last few years, so many OEMs and carriers offer payment programs to give consumers the option of paying a fraction of the price each month over a period of 24 or more months. But what do you do if something unexpected happens and you can’t make a payment for a month or two?”

“Google said it would no longer allow any apps to circumvent its payment system within the Google Play store that provides the company a cut of in-app purchases. Google said in a blog post on Monday that it was providing “clarity” on billing policies because there was confusion among some developers about what types of transactions require use of its app store’s billing system.”

“Google is rolling out a new update to the Google Pay app on Android that redesigns the mobile payments app. The new design strips the app of its lower bottom tab menu and moves all options to the hamburger menu (yes, Google’s shifting a focus on that after shifting away from hamburgers for the past few years.)”

“Passport, a transportation software company that enables cities to manage vehicle interactions with streets and sidewalks, is innovating with Google to enable people in Austin, Texas to pay for parking directly from Google Maps. This feature will start rolling out later today and will become widely available in the coming weeks.”