Google rolled out an update last year which allowed the users to send money to Android messages using Google Wallet. Now, it appears that Goole might be testing similar feature for the Google Contacts app in Canada. A report from Android Police indicated that a certain user came across the “Send” option on their Google Contacts app. The UI on this icon seems to be similar to the one which users had seen on the Android Messages app. This feature has been seemingly made available by the server side switch. However, the “Request Money” option is yet to be seen by the users.
Of course, this feature presently is not fully functional and right now seems to be in a testing phase. Like we said the ‘request money’ option is to be added and Google is probably testing these features by the server-side switches. The user who noticed these updates was running Contacts v2.5 on the Nexus 6P and resided in Canada. So it will be safe to say that presently this feature will only be available in Canada right now.
Google did a necessary rebranding of the Android Pay app as the Google Pay app and also launched Google Tez standalone application in India, another payment application which is meant to compete with the likes of Paytm.
It is apparent that Google has solid plans in place to climb up the ranks in the area of mobile payments. Also other companies do not look to back off, Samsung Pay and Android Pay also have eyes on the same target. The total number of users in the mobile payment sector was 450 million in 2017, this number is expected to rise in 2018. Companies are definitely putting plans in place to capture the maximum bunch of this user base.
