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Google Wallet is closely tied to Google Play Services, which has a dedicated support page where Google announces new features and improvements to many of its apps and services each month. Not every app gets something new every month, but Google Wallet appears in the release notes quite often. This month was not an exception.
The Mountain View tech giant has announced several handy new features for Google Wallet. The update is part of Google Play Services v26.40, which Google released only a few hours ago. Version 26.40 is pretty significant and has plenty of major announcements, but before that, here is what it adds to Google Wallet.
What's new in Google Wallet in the latest Google Play Services update
You can now add more to Google Wallet
With the latest Google Play Services update, you can now scan and add receipts to Google Wallet. This gives Google's wallet app a slight advantage over Samsung Wallet and many other wallet apps. So, this is indeed a win for Google. However, it hasn't clarified how the feature works, whether all kinds of receipts are supported, or whether it'll be available everywhere.
In addition to support for receipts, Google Pay on Chrome for Android lets users skip the Payment Request interface when they provide merchants with their name, email address, and phone number. Although we haven't seen it in action, it should make payments much more seamless. Again, Google hasn't clarified whether this is available worldwide.
The latest Google Play Services update has also improved merchant names in Google Wallet transaction notifications, so you can now get more clarity on where you made the payment.
Lastly, there is now an in-app message center in Google Wallet. Although it hasn't mentioned what type of messages it will include, we expect Google to highlight major new features in the message center when they go official. This makes sense because it will only help Google to reach and encourage users to use the latest and greatest features in Google Wallet.
What else is new in the latest Google Play Services update
New features for Play Store
The update also improves security and privacy in Android WebView, which has been updated to version 156. The latest Android WebView also includes some developer-centric features.
On top of this, the Google Play Store has also been updated to version 53.6, adding a bunch of new features. You now get 'summarized insights and direct citations from real user reviews with Ask Play.' If you have doubts about any apps in the Play Store, this feature will help.
The latest version of the Play Store now also supports AI Summary in Community Posts and allows you to 'find app content from installed apps with an active subscription in the Subscription Center.' Hopefully, we'll get more handy new features in the upcoming releases.