Category: Google Pay

The Starbucks app for Android has been updated this morning and it brings the ability to do a one time adding of funds to your account from Google Pay.  The update is version 4.11.1 for those keeping score at home and should be out to everyone who has the app installed by now.

Once you have updated, you can go to the FAB (Floating Action Button) which has your current account balance and tap it and then go to the Add money option.  There you will see your credit card information you normally use to top up your card but if you use change the Payment type, you will see that Google Pay is an option.

Croatia has become the latest country where Google Pay is now available.  It means that Croatians can now use their phones to tap-and-pay for services in supporting retailers as well as for online purchases.  The country marks the third central European country to get the service after Czech Republic and Slovakia earlier this year.

Support for Google Pay in Croatia is pretty limited at the moment.  Only the Visa Inspire Debit Card from PBZ is currently supported.  No other financial institutions or even other cards from PBZ are supported – at least not yet.  It is likely that other banks will join into the service once it is more established.

Google has announced this morning an update to the Google Pay app for Android devices.  Critically, this update will bring the ability to send or receive funds from friends & family within the app, effectively killing the Google Pay Send app.

If you recall, when Android Pay was rebranded Google Pay back in February, the ability to send and receive money was moved to a separate app with the Mountain View company indicating that this was a temporary thing.  The plan all along was to have Google Pay as your single payment app and that appears to be rolling out now.

Google Pay has once again been working hard with banks and financial institutions, adding another 63 of them to the roster today.  With the additions, Pay now is supported by some 1,427 institutions in the United States alone, well ahead of their nearest competition.

In addition to the these financial institutions being added, which I’ll list out after the break, Google Pay also picked up support for the PayPal Mastercard.  Support for PayPal was added back in May of last year but the Synchrony-backed Mastercard was not supported.  Now it is and you can add it to Pay to use as a purchasing option when you tap-to-pay at a retailer or online.

A cloud-side update to Google Pay is rolling out that finally brings back the ability to sort loyalty and gift cards in the app to your liking.  The ability to sort these cards was something that was a part of Android Pay but when the rebranding of the app and service took place earlier this year, the feature was dropped.

The ability to sort your loyalty and gift cards may seem minor but if you have a lot of these types of cards in your Google Pay app, it can be a bit of a pain (and somewhat awkward if you are trying to use one in a queue at a retailer) trying to find them.  I personally love the fact that my cards can now be put in alphabetical order.

A colleague of mine always starts detailed emails with “BLUF” – Bottom Line Up Front.  So here is your BLUF:  If your bank doesn’t support Google Pay at this point, it is probably time to look for a new bank.  Up until yesterday, in 2018 alone, the tap-to-pay service had added 141 new banks:  80 in January and another 61 in March.  They just doubled the number by adding an scarcely believable 171 financial institutions yesterday.

The additional financial institutions brings the total number of those supporting Google Pay to 1,364 across the United States.