Google Wallet lets you send money to your contacts using just their number

With Android Pay’s introduction, it would seem the presence of Google Wallet is a bit redundant. To get rid of that redundancy, Google’s marketing it as a means to send money to your contacts. Google’s simplified this by letting you send money to your contacts using just their mobile numbers, before you needed to have their email addresses. When you send money to a number, your recipient will get a text message with a secure link. When they click this link, they just have to enter their debit card to claim the money. It’ll then be credited to their bank account within minutes, according to Google.

Google didn’t indicate though which countries this feature is available in. But it will available for both Android and iOS users in the coming days

Source: Google Commerce Blog | Download: Google Play Store (Free) + Apple App Store (Free)

Google, Samsung gearing up to challenge Apple Pay in mobile payments this year

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Its been over six months after Apple launched its US-based mobile payments platform Apple Pay, and competitors are finally gearing to challenge the iPhone focused payments solution.

Part of Samsung's big announcement yesterday at its Samsung Galaxy S6 device launch was Samsung Pay and today Google's Sundar Pichai revealed that his company has been working on Android Pay.

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Bye-bye Google Wallet’s digital goods platform!

Just three years after it was first introduced, Google is shutting down the digital goods platform for Google Wallet. Because the browser-based payment system didn’t achieve the penetration for digital goods as they hoped, the digital goods API will be retired by March 2. They are telling developers to switch to a different payment platform before said date to avoid any hassle for their customers. Developers should also remove any references to Google Wallet on their sites.

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