
In 2018, Google merged its Google Wallet and Android Pay services, bringing everything under the moniker of Google Pay. Google Wallet continued to exist as a peer-to-peer money-sending app, much like Google Pay is today (confused enough yet?). Secondly, it was much easier to use, it didn't require finding the app and entering a pin, users could simply unlock their phone and place it over the reader to pay. There were two key differentiators with Android Pay, firstly it was built-in to Android so you didn't have to download an additional app. Google Wallet wasn't used by many people and was initially restricted to the Google Nexus phone.Īfter about four years, Google Wallet was replaced by Android Pay. At the time, contactless payments were a new phenomenon, and NFC was yet to be widely adopted by the Android phone market.
