Does Google Wallet’s P2P Pivot Matter?

Android Pay, which begins rolling out today, has not killed Google Wallet as many assumed it would.

Instead, Google Wallet today made public that it has made another pivot, this time into a peer-to-peer payments service like PayPal or Square Cash. Several years ago, Google Wallet was the next big thing in mobile payments, but its functionality and prestige suffered from a series of blows that led to the introduction of a prepaid debit card, which still survives.

Essentially, the old Google Wallet split into Android Pay, the NFC payment vehicle, and this new, slimmer service. That old Google Wallet app will reportedly be renamed Android Pay soon. Users can send money from a card or bank account or their Google Wallet balance to another users via the app, website, or Gmail. This last service caused a huge stir in the spring of 2013. Gmail users needed to get Google Wallet accounts to use the service, though it’s not clear how successful that drive was. (We are betting it wasn’t.)

Why keep Google Wallet alive as a brand rather than fold it into Android Pay? The term “Wallet” hardly seems applicable anymore. Twitter user Frank Young, a former Googler, notes that the option to move funds from Google Wallet to a debit card has expanded its functionality in a significant way:

New #GoogleWallet option to cash out to a debit card. This 1 change shifts GOOG’s P2P strategy from product to platform.

— Frank T. Young (@FrankTYoung) September 10, 2015

That’s undoubtedly Google’s hope.

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