Rember Google Wallet? When Android Pay was split out of the service what remained was a PayPal-like money transfer system that allows you to both send and request money from friends and family. Google announced today a major visual refresh of the service, but I wouldn’t get too excited: it’s still not available in Australia.

Navigating to the site gives you a friendly popup advising “Wallet can’t be used. This could be because Google Wallet isn’t supported in your country or because you’re using a business account. To see your purchases from Google Play and other products, go to the payments center”.

Considering the ubiquity of Paypal, especially with their short URL PayPal.Me service, I can’t say I’m super upset I can’t use Google Wallet; it doesn’t offer me anything Paypal doesn’t. However, this feels like another missed opportunity for Google.

There are many who say that Google’s reliance on advertising revenue could lead to their ultimate downfall, and as such, they have been trying to diversify their income source. Now I’m no economist, but micro transactions (aka nickel and dime-ing) has shown itself to be very lucrative at scale.

I could see Google turning Wallet into a full blown PayPal competitor, especially as they don’t need the revenue in the short term. Additionally, imagine the increased data Google could collect with knowing when you finally purchase something. Perhaps they could stop serving me ads after I’ve bought that thing I searched for? Perhaps Google has no interest in growing the Wallet service, and what remains is simply left there for existing users?

Would you use Google Wallet over PayPal if it came here? Let us know below.

Source: Google.
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craigo

In Googles defence. Setting up a payment system in a country is a very big task. There are a lot of tax and government regulations that need to be complied with (especially here in Australia). Not to mention that those regulations are forever changing.