Google Wallet

Google Wallet started as a central hub for linked debit and credit cards, transformed into a payment system that linked your bank account to a physical card, and eventually morphed into a person-to-person payment system that helped its users ditch the plastic. The slimmed-down Google Wallet, available via Web browsers and mobile apps, is now more focused on mobile payments between individuals rather than businesses. It's a direct competitor to our Editors' Choice Venmo. It works, but it's a shame Google had to strip out so many features to find its current focus.

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Getting Started

If you have a Google account, you can access Wallet. Once you've set it up, you need to link your Google Wallet account to your funds, either by entering your bank information or storing credit card and debit card data. You can add multiple cards, too. From there, you can either add funds to your balance and cash out later or just have Google Wallet pull directly from the sources you choose. Google Wallet has a $9,999 single transaction limit, and you can't send more than $50,000 per 5-day period. That eclipses what competitors, such as Square Cash and the Editors' Choice award-winning Venmo allow in a week ($2,500 and $2,999, respectively).

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In addition to the highest daily spending limits, Google Wallet also has the highest fees. Adding money from any card, credit or debit, will cost you 2.9 percent. Venmo's 3 percent tax is only on credit cards, while Square Cash has no penalty, since it only supports debit cards. If you choose to use the app as your primary wallet, you can tell it to alert you if funds get too low.

Facebook Messenger, Mark Zuckerberg's popular chat client, also boasts person-to-person mobile payments, but it has a few differentiators that separate it from Google Wallet. For example, it only links to debit cards (not credit cards), and has zero transaction fees.

Mobile Payment Mambo

Google Wallet used to let you do all sorts of things with your money, so much so that it actually made the whole process a bit confusing. This new version, with its reduced set of features, is much easier to navigate. Performing transactions used to require digging through several layers of menus. Now you can exchange money with friends right on the main screen through the Venmo-inspired interface, as long as you have your friend's email address. The only thing the other person has to do to claim the money is set up their own Google Wallet account. Unclaimed cash comes back to you after two weeks. Transactions are all recorded for future reference. You can also pay for goods and services, such as YouTube video rentals.

Google Wallet lets you send cash via SMS messages similarly to the way you can in Venmo, Square Cash, and Facebook Messenger (though that's through its own messages rather than SMS). If you send money through a text, the other party receives a secure link to the funds. They then tap the link, log into Google, enter their bank information, and cash out. It's simple and convenient, although we wouldn't blame someone for not trusting a text essentially saying "click here to get money." Since the text support expands the pool of potential contacts, the contact suggestions have also been increased.

Most of the old Google Wallet features that have been stripped away, including NFC payments to gift cards and customer-loyalty-program management, are now handled separately by Android Pay. Of course that only helps you if you use a smartphone using Google's operating system. And while the ditched features did make the original app somewhat cluttered, without them, the new Google Wallet feels less substantial. It's no longer a comprehensive solution for all your mobile-payment needs. Google also abandoned the physical Google Wallet Card, so there's no longer a piece of plastic tied to your account that can be used like a debit card.

Buyer Beware

The trade-off of diving too deep into any digital ecosystem, especially one as data-hungry as Google's, is figuring out how much privacy you're willing to sacrifice for convenience. The stakes are that much higher when dealing with financial data. Fortunately, you can lock all your cards saved on Google Wallet behind spending-limit timers, passwords, and PINs.

While we trust Google to keep sensitive information safe from criminals, we don't necessarily trust Google to keep sensitive information safe from the advertisers that pay the company's bills. Access to your purchasing habits is a dream for advertisers and a nightmare for you. There's nothing that suggests Wallet data is being exploited like this, however. Renting a few films didn't cause it to suddenly bombard us with commercials for similar movies.

Back to Basics

After complaining about the last Google Wallet feeling too stuffed, dinging it for removing features might sound hypocritical. However, the problem was never that the app did too much, rather that it just dumped all that functionality on the user in a confusing way. The straightforward interface of the new Google Wallet is definitely an improvement. And maybe splitting Google's mobile-payment platform into two perfectly good apps with clear purposes—Google Wallet for paying friends and Android Pay for paying businesses—is a smart move. But that choice also means that each app, individually, is now less capable. Venmo, is our current Editors' Choice, and the mobile payment app to beat.