Google Shutting Down Wallet Card
google.comThis is the first of Google's product cancellations that will affect me personally. My wife and I have been using Google Wallet cards for budgeting - we transfer our spending money to the cards each week to help track our spending. Honestly there's no reason Google Wallet was superior for this - I expect Simple will solve our problems better anyway. Should have seen this coming when they split it off of Android Pay.
It's a UI layer on top of an old-fashioned bank. It offers worse rates, perks, benefits and service than Ally, Schwab or Fidelity. Good if you want something pretty on the side, I suppose.
The app is nicer and the barrier to start very low. I started using it when I got rid of Ally. Youre right there are no perks to Google Wallet Card but the perks from Ally and other banks are not very useful for the use described above. Basically, they are putting a tiny amount of money aside and spending it all in the next 30 days.
I havent used the app but Simple sounds pretty good since you can set multiple "goals" (I think they should call them buckets or envelopes or something).
Simple is beautiful for budgeting. Every month I use their "goals" as budgets (Rent, recurring costs, motorcycle, day-to-day, insurance, etc.) and I set aside all the money I'm going to spend in each category for the month - and just mark the transactions from that goal. Makes it very easy to budget. There could be improvements - but this works wonderfully right now.
Simple is great but it's a bit confusing when looking at your balances. If you are just using the mobile app it's fine because it hides your stashes but the web app spills the beans when it tells you how much money you really have.
I disagree about the service being bad. I've had nothing but positive experiences with Simple's support team.
Also, they offer a JSON feed of my transactions, which isn't something any of my other banks provide.
How do you access these json feeds?
Login to account, push "Export", select "JSON".
It would be nice if they had OAuth support or a formally documented API, but it's still a good start.
The only Google products that are guaranteed to stick around for the long term are Search and Gmail, and that's been pretty clear to see for the past decade. There's no good reason to get invested in any of their services with how often they pop up and how soon after they're shut down.
And Android, all of the ad stack, analytics (it gives google a lot of data), chrome, maps, docs, drive (in some form), calendar, app engine, hangouts (part of gmail). There are tons of products that are both successful, and are tied to core things google wants to be good at.
Isn't Google trying to merge Android into ChromeOS?
ChromeOS is open sourced and will still be available for some time, but yeah, they're merging the two. Ubiquity between Android and desktop/laptops would be great.
Also youtube.
The only product really guaranteed to stick around is Search. Things closely wedded to Search (GMail, Android, Maps) are fairly safe bets.
Personally, I'll be happy when they close Google Groups.
Groups is the last resting place of the USENET archive. Deleting it would be a tremendous loss!
I bet that's what they do. Just like Google Video. Maybe throw a "oops we are just archiving it!" in before they finally drop the axe.
Note how it's JS interface makes it difficult to archive now. Is that because HTML fallback on USENET would be too hard for the googlemachine?
The sooner the better.
+1 for Simple!
-1 for Simple. Not refunding ATM fees is ridiculous for a bank that has no physical ATMs. Also, things like this: "Your Simple Visa® Card will not function on August 6th from 2:00 - 9:00 am EST"
They have ATMs everywhere. And newsflash traditional banks cards do the same thing, they are just less transparent about it.
My bank pays me back for all ATM fees, even ones in other countries.
(I use Schwab, mostly because my "equity awards" were there and I don't need a physical bank.)
I bank with Ally, who refund my ATM fees no matter where I go. I don't see why I would switch to Simple.
Caution: there is a $10 limit on ATM fee reimbursements iirc.
Relevant discussion on Reddit pf
https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/3ck2rr/all...
Yes, I'm aware of that, thanks. I haven't yet ever come up against that limit, thankfully.
Haven't had to pay a ATM fee at my "traditional bank" in years.
Even when customers do not get refunds on fees, banks are usually very clear about it.
These ATMs have no fees, it looks like: https://www.simple.com/atms
Tell me more: what's this service about?
You can see that people are pretty split about Simple being a good idea. I can tell you that the one thing they offer me over any other online bank is their budgeting tools.
I'll specify a certain amount like 500 or 1000 dollars to be set aside by any date. It will move over small amounts daily without you noticing. In reality, the money is all in the same account but mentally I do way better with this scheme. I've built an emergency, a car repair fund, saved for AC for my home, and more without seeing a huge loss in my daily balance. It helped me learn to budget and save and that's the value they provide.
If you already are an amazing budgeter, no need to sign up.
It's a bank startup which doesn't have physical locations. They're partnered with Bancorp, so your account is backed by FDIC, and they have a large number of ATMs. You can read more here https://www.simple.com/
> It's a bank startup which doesn't have physical locations
There's got to be more to it than that, right? There are lots of internet-only banks. I use Ally.
Ally's interest rates are tempting, but the fact that it's just GMAC with some new makeup is very off putting.
Simple is "just Bancorp" which you could probably say equal things about.
I could say horrible things about them. Like when I was in school and my student loan disbursement came on a Bancorp debit card, and they charged me money to withdraw funds. Yup, if I wanted to buy books with my student loan disbursement, I got charged bank fees on money I got from a loan and paid interest on, and had absolutely no choice in the matter.
Yeah it was my school's decision, but that doesn't excuse Bancorp from offering a product that is designed specifically to cheat people out of their money.
As I understand it, Bancorp is just contracted by Simple to hold the funds and interface with the banking system. All of the policies, support and user-facing parts are handled by Simple itself.
Ally, on the other hand, literally is GMAC.
Actually it's the other way around. Simple is the public facing interface that is beholden to all of the policies and inconveniences of Bancorp. Don't get me wrong I love the service but full disclosure it's Bancorp with makeup. Now I have had instances where they where Bancorp was closed for a holiday and my direct deposit didn't get processed and I had bills that were going to hit that I needed access to my funds and they were very helpful and happy to do a temporary credit to my account to make sure that I got what I needed.
I switched to Ally for checking & savings a year ago, and I absolutely love it. Best mobile & web UX I've seen from a bank, best interest rates out there, ATM fee reimbursements, and easy mobile check deposit.
Their finances seem relatively healthy: http://www.bankrate.com/rates/safe-sound/memorandums-memos.a...
This, plus a pretty unique system for allocating cash around. Perhaps it's psychological, but I've been with them for about 3 months and have started burrowing out of a years-long financial hole in pretty short order.
Basically, imagine the envelope budgeting system as an actual part of your account, combined with a daily savings option. Assuming that you enter your bills in correctly (and it's, erm.. dead simple), you know immediately how much cash you have is safe to spend.
Great CS as well. Actual humans who speak English and who can solve your problems.
Can't recommend them enough.
It's a bank that only lives on the internet. I am actually surprisingly happy with them as my only bank.
Having been a customer of Charles Schwab for several years at this point, I've never seen the appeal of Simple. I get better interest rates, fantastic customer service, unlimited ATM rebates and a host of brokerage services, all for free.
Fellow Schwab customer here. Unlimited ATM rebates has been great. I was surprised at bow nice it felt to whip out my Schwab card next to the scary little free-standing ATM machine at the cash-only shop with some ridiculous $4.00 ATM fee. Felt like a cheat code.
Try it at a casino. You'll feel like you're robbing the place.
> Felt like a cheat code.
Until the day you use an ATM with a skimmer. Private machines are a dangerous cesspool.
> I get better interest rates, fantastic customer service, unlimited ATM rebates and a host of brokerage services, all for free.
All great points. The customer service in particular is just outstanding. If there was the opposite experience of calling into Comcast support, it'd be calling into Charles Schwab. They know their stuff and are willing and able to patiently explain things well beyond a script. The yearly free financial consult is awesome, too.
Only annoyance is that some of the procedures require printing out a PDF, filling it in, and physically mailing it or faxing it back. Hopefully that'll be less common in the future.
That's interesting, I got an email from them a few months after signing up to be contacted at a Career Fair and they left the {{CLIENT NAME}} placeholder in the email. So I figured they were incompetent :P
Schwab is fantastic. Their service is top-notch and I'm really glad I'm no longer with Chase. I once accidentally rated an online chat interaction lowly, and received a follow up call by a concerned manager less than a day later.
Lots of love happening for Schwab here - but it's more or less the same with Fidelity, Morgan Stanley, etc - ATM rebates for any ATM, no fees, free checking / checkbooks, etc.
A cheat code is a nice way of describing how refreshing this is in comparison with the standard bank business model of offering some fairly limited basic checking account as a loss leader, then constantly trying to upsell you on every other kind of product / account imaginable, trying the overdraft protection scam on you, ATM fees, checkbook fees, etc, etc.
It's a wonder they can stay in business.
The only issue with Schwab is their ridiculous password policy (8 chars). Turning on 2FA on your account is a must with them (they'll happily send you a little hardware token generating dongle if you ask.)
It took some getting used to, but I've really liked using Simple. I can now very easily always answer the following question: "how much money can I spend right now?"
Is there something like Simple for non-US residents, living in US?
Same here. It's more an annoyance and a function of my laziness but inconvenient nonetheless.
I rarely need to get cash out of a machine but when I do, I transfer some cash to my Wallet Card and hit the ATM. Thankfully all I really need to do is spend a lunch hour heading over to my credit union to get a plastic card but the Wallet Card was much more convenient and allowed me to grab the funds from various accounts.
I have a Simple account as well but stopped using it when I needed a new card and couldn't prove I'd moved since they wanted a few (printed) bills with my new address but unfortunately none of these are in my name so I couldn't fulfill their request. Maybe it's time to revisit that situation and try to work something out again.
No joint accounts with Simple, so it's cumbersome to share a card.
True. My wife and I each have a separate Simple account, and we've never had separate checking accounts before. That would have been a problem except for the fact that Simple provides instant transfers to other simple accounts. So my wife manages roughly half of our budget and I manage the other half, and if we ever need to move money across accounts, we can do it instantly.
Serve looks much better
Am I the only one who hears about like 75% of Google's products for the first time only when they issue EOL/EOS notices?
That's been my experience too. Google discontinuation notices come up on YC regularly, and I've heard of maybe half the products. The other half I've heard bad things about.
Except Google Code Search. I liked Google Code Search. But there's no useful way to hang ads on it. They could have used it for recruiting. People doing searches for code in difficult areas might be worth talking to. Google has tried that. At one time, if you searched for "proof of correctness", you got a Google recruiting ad. I was once contacted because I posted something in comp.lang.c++. (Unfortunately the person who contacted me was so clueless I told him to put me on their do-not-call list.)
I've never heard of google code search, but based on what it sounds like it is, http://symbolhound.com might be an alternative.
Google Code Search: 2006-2013.[1] It was from the era when Google claimed their mission was to organize all the world's information, and they had book-scanning and newspaper-scanning projects. But that content generated no ad revenue.
Why do you say: had? They still have: - https://www.google.com/googlebooks/library/ - https://support.google.com/books/partner/faq/3396243?hl=en&r...
You're not the only one, which is exactly the problem.
PS: I've never heard of this service either.
Of course, many of us have stopped promoting new Google services because we've seen the fate of too many. Among other things, we don't want to have Google's increasingly bad reputation for this rub off on us.
Is that really any different that promoting a startup's product? Somebody has to try new things and shut down a large percentage of them. I'm surprised HN is so against it. Perhaps google should distinguish services that have long term commitments from those that don't?
I think your second sentence has got it: Google is not a startup, and it should distinguish between startup like experiments and things they are making a long term commitment to. And even then G+ shows they won't be perfect, but they can at least try.
Same here, one would think the first ad network on the internet would know how to market its products ... it turns out it doesn't.
I don't think they feel the need. Perhaps Google believes if it can't gain network effect without advertising, it's not a product that can ever attain Minimum Viable Ubiquity.
Which is why it's being shut down
I think the last time I'd actually heard of the product in question was Google Reader. But that goes for virtually all of the "X is shutting down" stories I see on HN.
Same here. Reminds me of this: http://didgoogleshutdown.com/
The Wallet Card was invented for places that don't take Android Pay, to pay in the form of a regular credit/debit card. Unfortunately, this is useless because it is the same level of (in)convenience as a credit card, and doesn't offer the 2-5% cashback that all the other cards I have do.
Even if a store accepted NFC-based Android Pay, I'd probably still opt to pull out my plastic card for the cashback and consumer protection. Google/Apple Pay need to find a way to weave benefits into their systems if they want to win the market.
Where are you getting 5% cash back? Highest I've seen is Chase Sapphire with their points which are worth 2-3%. Highest straight cash back I've seen is Citi DoubleCash at 2%.
Discover has seasonal 5% categories that change every 3 months but they're pretty broad like "Gas and Groceries" or "Restaurants and Entertainment".
I have the old American Express Blue Cash card which has some crazy 5% cashback on gas and groceries once you hit a minimum spend during the year. That thing paid out like a slot machine when gas prices were hovering around $3.50 a gallon and I was doing a 100 mile commute daily.
Chase Freedom has 5% cash back on certain categories that change throughout the year.
Freedom and Sapphire cards are amazing because you can combine points between them.
How does that work? If credit card fees are well under 5%.
Sure, fees are under 5%, but what about that one month that you didn't pay off your bill in full? Enjoy that ~30% interest rate on your account balance.
1) Chase Freedom's APR tends to be around 20% 2) If you only carry a balance (or part of it) for one month (as in your example) and then pay it off the next month, your interest charge is nowhere close to the APR (and it's only calculated against the portion you didn't pay off).
I have a discontinued Barclaycard that gets me 5% for gas, groceries (including Walmart and Target), and bookstores (including anything at Amazon, even AWS and digital downloads). There are caps, but I almost always spend below (have hit the grocery one a couple of times).
In addition to the ones mentioned here Wells Fargo has a card with 5% back at grocery stores for the first 6 months and the Chase Ink+ gets 5x at office supply stores and a few others.
USBank Cash+ too. You have to pick categories each quarter. You get to pick though, which makes it more convenient than cards that just assign random categories.
I have an old Citi Forward card that offers 5% back on all restaurants and bookstores (including Amazon).
Until June 4th (FYI)
Can you post a source for that? I haven't heard anything to that extent.
Apple/Google Pay don't have anything to do with that.
The cashback, rewards and consumer protection are done through the card issuer and backing bank. You're still paying through the same account, but with a different interface (your phone instead of plastic).
You can add you American Express (or whatever) card to Apple Pay, the protection and points are not in the plastic.
Add you rewards card to Android Pay, tap at the NFC terminal, get your rewards like normal.
Of course that means your bank supports Android Pay, but that's really the standard hit-or-miss technology adoption that banks are slow at anyways.
I think Discover and AmEx give the same cashback with Android Pay now. Chase is not on Android Pay yet.
Google Reader thought me long ago not to depend or invest much time on Google services. Nowadays the only product that would cause me a huge problem if they decide to cancel it is Gmail.
Honestly, I don't think they'll ever cancel Gmail.
Or maybe they'll cancel Gmail so users will transfer to (ew) Google Inbox. I sure hope not.
You're safe there. Imagine the day when Google migrated itself to O365. I can't either.
Unlikely. Though I could see them disabling IMAP and/or SMTP for consumer GMail.
Hardly. They'd rather cancel POP first.
A long-term IMAP storage is legally needed for the spooks to read your email in real-time. With POP they don't have the legal excuses, so they cannot read it. Only what's left over there.
A long-term IMAP storage is legally needed for the spooks to read your email in real-time.
There is an API for that: https://developers.google.com/gmail/api/guides/push#stopping...
I think there is a dynamic being left out of the conversation here (and do please correct me if this has been brought already). There is certainly a story in that "yet another Google service is being shut down." But, let's rewind a bit.
All these services that Google has or will eventually shut down were at one time at the "go/no go" stage. When Google was still a start-up that "go/no go" decision might be based off of resources or a particular group of programmers passion. Now a mature company, this decision is generally made based on calculations as to how a particular project will fit into the overall portfolio and impact the bottom line.
Some projects, no matter how much a passionate group of programmers might lobby, may never get off the ground because there isn't a sufficient argument in terms of the larger picture. But, and here I finally get to my point, some projects are surely proposed purely to protect the bottom line from competitors or to hedge against changes in the marketplace; i.e. Google+ was purely to protect against the trend of Facebook becoming a growing percentage of a user's on-line experience and walling off content to Google's search engine.
Another example, still unfolding, is that of their Nest acquisition. And this is where the real damage gets done. Google sees the growth of the IOT market, and so acquires Nest so as to get a foothold into that market.
Now both Google+ and Nest are dying horrible, slow, shot in the stomach movie deaths, and everyone is forced to watch. What could have been accomplished by the engineers working on these projects if their primary goal was to serve a remote master, the bottom line of Alphabet? Perhaps, if these two products where not born out of a proxy war to buttress the revenue of Google Search, perhaps we all could have seen great things born out of their endeavors.
Instead, having served their purpose, the fiscal responsibility due to the shareholders of Alphabet having been fulfilled, the Alphabet PR machine gently asks that we look away, and look to their next amazing product.
I am sad about this. I've used the card since it came out years ago. Reloading, paying, canceling, renewing, locking were all so super easy. Only reason I didn't switch to Simple was because of the existence of Google Wallet + card, guess I'll be looking into that now.
I'll vouche for Simple. Their app and Goals feature are great, but the thing I love is the real time purchase notifications. It's kind of amazing to me that no bank (that I have used yet) have apps with this functionality. It's incredibly comforting to get a notification everytime I buy something. It also helped me identify falsified purchases the moment they happened, which enabled me to put a hold on my card and file a report of the incident within minutes (and all through the phone app!).
I really hate gushing about products and services on public forums, but Simple deserves it.
Chase gives me this for my Visa card (I can set an 'alert' level). I buy nearly everything with that card (and use it to pay most of my other bills as well).
Card Guard from America First Credit Union also has realtime notifications. It helped me catch a double charge from a merchant that came through days later.
Heh apparently this isn't that unique! I had 2 banks prior to simple and none had notifications close to the level that Simple offers. It's great to hear others have it because I wont use a bank that doesn't offer something similar.
I get real time notification from my Amex card and my Capital One visa.
Those aren't bank accounts though.
Anecdotal, but I've used Simple for almost two years and while the mobile app really is great, the biggest benefit I've gotten out of it is the "Goals" feature. Surely there are other budgeting systems out there that do the same thing (be they software like YNAB or just being better with money in general), in my case having it all integrated with my bank really changed my spending habits and as a result I've paid off all of my revolving credit card debt and I am now a much more responsible spender.
Simple has been fantastic for me the past two years or so; give them a shot.
I'm going to try them out, appreciate the insight from you guys!
oh come on! it was working so well, I'm so tired of this company cancelling services. If MS made EEE an entry in Wikipedia [1], we need to coin one for Google...
1. Experiment, Excite, Evaporate ?
2. Google SDLC: PoC, Beta, Retire ?
"Google it" starts to sounds like "Kill it"
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish
hmm, not even sure what that was. I know this sounds like sour grapes complaining so feel free to read it in Verruca Salt's voice if you want... This is why I am scared to try anything new from Google. I know why they do it, I know how they do things, I totally get it, but it does not make it better. I know they like trying new things. I know they're not afraid to get rid of things that aren't performing like they want. But as a little guy, just part of the big group of users they monetize every day, I can't ever use anything new from them because I'm just afraid it will be gone in a year or two. I don't expect them to keep every damn thing running forever, I really get that they can't, but they seem over eager to shut things down, even if they seem to be used by no small number of people. e.g. Google Keep. Tried, loved it, never used it again. I'm still afraid it'll die any day now. /Verucca
Google keep just got its iOS client this past fall. As far as I can tell, they keep adding small improvements to it.
The nice thing with most Google apps is that you can get your data out easily with Takeout: http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2015/08/export-all-your-goo...
Unrelated to article, but keep really is awesome. I use the iOS app every day.
Interesting to see Google Keep brought up as an example, since Google summarily killed Notebook [1], which I used, and which seemed similar in many ways.
[1] Google Notebook: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Notebook
Do Google products have a higher closure rate than products in general? (I'm genuinely curious)
If not, then do you have the same fear of any new product from any company? That risk is there too...
That's a couple of really good questions. Another reason I feel bad complaining at all.
'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
Completely wrong when it comes to adopting new technologies unless you are a real youngster.
My debit/credit card pairing hasn't been cancelled or changed in the 10 years I have had it unless I have specifically engineered that change.
The reality is that you just shouldn't trust google for anything that appears long term, and consider them as a casual partner, not a long term relationship.
Relative to all the startups that compete with them, Google and Microsoft products are much safer to rely on. They will at least give you a migration path and a generous time allowance for that migration. Most of the startups who shut down their services do so with with no notice.
And relative to a bank, which is what I was comparing them to, they are canceling things at a very very rapid pace.
I am perfectly fine with people saying that Google, a multi-billion dollar corporation, cancels things less often than a company with a completely uncertain future and no profit.
I am also fine with saying that comparison is not fair to the startups or to business that try to deliver a faithful product to their customers.
Then there are the "lingering death" products, such as Google Voice. Google bought that from Grand Central in 2009, and it's still basically Grand Central. There's a running joke about Google Voice acquiring an API that's been in a bug report for five years now.
I think there's a phone interface feature associated with Google Hangouts. ("Google Hangups?") But it probably requires that everyone you talk to have a Google account. All these little closed-world communications systems are a pain.
I think the Hangouts Dialer does use my Google Voice number. Google Voice voicemails also show up in Hangouts now, instead of the Google Voice app. Also, doesn't Project Fi use Google Voice numbers? And the recent Google Fiber home phone service?
The dedicated Google Voice app has withered, but Google seems to be integrating the service into their other projects.
> I think there's a phone interface feature associated with Google Hangouts. But it probably requires that everyone you talk to have a Google account.
Er, it's a phone interface. It makes phone calls. Everyone you talk to is only required to have a phone number.
God I really hope they don't kill off Google Voice, I use it daily!
Hangouts absorbed Google Voice:
"Hangouts remains the future of Google Voice, so we’re going to keep bringing the most-loved Google Voice features into the core Hangouts experience,"
My wife doesn't know about Google's reputation for shutting down services like this. But when I tried to convince her to use "Project Fi" she refused. She thinks "Project" sounds as if it's an experiment. Tsk, she's probably more right than she knows.
But I really wanted to try it out anyways -- with number portability there's just not that much risk.
You know, back in the old Embrace Extend Extinguish days, I used to think Microsoft should just cancel old products they obviously don't give a shit about. I hated that they sucked the oxygen out of the room by continuing to half-ass it for years and years.
Now we have Google, that's almost as big but not as contentious, and they're canceling things left and right, and that's causing problems too. So now I'm not sure what my position is on the topic.
I wonder how the engineers on these projects feel. To work really hard on something just to have it thrown out due to "business reasons". Must suck.
Seems like most of the projects that get the axe have been neglected for a while first. Probably no one is really pouring their heart in to these things enough to be too upset.
Every project I've touched has withered and has been cancelled (except for one, but it has only been out for a year). I'm convinced that it's my super power.
I've been on a couple projects that got the axe. Doesn't bother me, I still got paid.
it was a round about way to resolve the issue that google wallet/android pay wasn't accepted at many places. The solution is about as dumb as it sounds. I liked it because it was a really quick and easy debit card essentially. So I would use it at places I didn't trust since I could limit the amount on the card.
It would be great if they at least open sourced failed experiments.
Might be really hard due to closed source / licensed components and google infrastructure dependant architecture.
That just seems like bad design on their part. In the past, Google leaned towards open source by default, and then kept just some of the secret sauce to their services proprietary, now it seems that their proprietary services is the bulk of what they produce.
Perhaps they need to unbundle.
Google Wave works great today on self-hosted platforms.
Google Wave was still useful after it was open sourced because people could set up their own servers.
But what would you take from Google Wallet? The physical debit card? The payment service? Unless you're opening a bank, I'm not sure how useful any of that would be.
I've heard from people inside that the quality of their codebase has gone down, and thus they can no longer just upload stuff without a refactoring.
All codebases are horrible after some years- that is the result of "please invest not time into this done project"- hotbugfixes piling to spots where they don't belong. The existence of this architecture corrosion is not something to be ashamed off. And everyone who reads in, can do so while refactoring those "if (input(isExoticEdgeCase)){...}" into some Filterclass of there own. My assumption is, that often management is in fear of being proven wrong, by some project coming alive. "This Project is not profitable, lets open source it." is a statement that can haunt you, if that very project comes alive and walks the earth for years to come. Coders and management united in fear of public embarrassment.
This makes it obvious how successful the Wallet Card was, I wonder how well Google Pay is doing. I would not have even heard about Google pay if I wasn't on HN, and I have used Android from the beginning.
They're canceling it _because_ it was successful.
The issue is that by using virtual Master Cards they have to pay part of the interchange fee to Citi (or was it Bancorp?). Not only that, but if you were backing it by a credit card, then they ate the 2% fee that they get charged in the backend when hitting your real credit card.
Plus the fact that they were essentially issuing you and everyone else short term credit when you made a purchase and that every transaction was Card Not Present no matter what (even if you swiped the "real" google wallet card, which was fun to do) ... yeah.
It was never going to stick around unless you got charged for usage, at which point it's not so attractive.
The pressure in the industry is to move to the secure-element/token based system anyway, i.e. Samsung/Android/Apple pay.
If you want to do funky stuff in the backend to abstract your purchases into one place then Simple or something like that is for you.
What I'm worried about is what's going to happen with the send-money feature of Google Wallet, which was attractive for short-term keeping track of who owes who what without Paypal fees.
I'm hoping they bring that back and somehow link it into Android Pay, even if there's some kind of fee coming or going for when you actually "collect". (Keeping it otherwise liquid and fee-free when you're just moving numbers around between accounts inside the system).
crosses fingers
Google Wallet will still be used to send money between Google users. In fact, that appears to be its only function going forward.
Money will be taken directly from the sender's debit card or checking account, and the recipient can deposit it in their checking account. The only features going away are the physical Wallet card and the ability to add to your Wallet balance.
According to /u/GraemeStanding, who appears to work on Android Pay (which is basically the old NFC payment portion of Google Wallet, split off and rebranded): https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/4crogp/just_got_an...
Unfortunately this is still a step back because the whole upside to Google Wallet was that you could "carry" the Wallet balance and use it as no-fee settlement between acquaintances, or turn around and pay for Google services with small amounts not worth withdrawing.
I mean if you can do ACH (i.e debit cards) with both parties and avoid fees then that's convenient in that you don't have to exchange checking account numbers or something outrageous (just email addresses), but that still could take an indeterminate amount of time to settle. Next day? A week?
But with the wallet balance you could hold transfers I got from other people or put money in ahead of time from my bank and then when I need it, the other party knows they got it on their phone.
There is no backing credit card with Google Wallet Card. The card is debit card for the balance in Google Wallet. The Google Wallet balance could be transferred from bank accounts or debit card, or from credit cards with fee.
The confusion is that Google Wallet app did both the Wallet transfers and NFC payments. Before Android Pay, the NFC payments used virtual credit cards.
The send money functionality for Google Wallet still exists. It is now the only purpose of the separate Wallet app.
While Apple Pay adds dozens of banks each month, the list of Android Pay participating banks seems to have barely budged since the beginning (https://support.google.com/androidpay/answer/6314169?hl=en). In particular, Chase still doesn't work with Android Pay.
Honest question, I must be missing something here - Why does your bank need to participate? I just add the card number from any credit or debit card and tap to pay just works. I don't use any of the banks on the supported list.
EDIT: Taking a stab at answering my own question - it looks like you can only set up ACH drafts from the list of supported banks, but as far as I can tell you can use any major credit card to fund purchases.
EDIT AGAIN: As pointed out below, this only works for me because I added these cards in to the old app and they were grandfathered in.
Because Apple/Android Pay are token systems that require integrations with a bank's backend systems.
EDIT: Apple uses a tokenized system, each transaction nets them a fee. Google has a hack for the payment network, it costs them for each transaction.
Then why does it work for me without said integration?
I believe Google Wallet works with any credit card because the payments go through Google, and then Google bills your card.
NFC tokenized payments (e.g., Apple Pay and Android Pay) use an alternative credit card number issued by the bank. Payments do not go through Google or Apple, and only the bank knows that this alternate number is associated with your credit card account.
Google Wallet actually moved to a prepaid model - you can only spend money that you add.
Android Pay works for me the way that you described Google Wallet working. I add a card number (seems like almost any card works, I have a MasterCard Amex and Visa Credit and Debit that all work) After I tap to pay Google charges my card for the amount.
EDIT: I just looked back at one of the recent tap-to-pay purchases I made with Android Pay, the charge on my card says 'GOOGNFC*[merchant-name]'. I believe that means that Android Pay charges are going through Google.
You have the old grandfathered cards (if you click through details, it will say it's a virtual card processed by Bancorp)
You can't add any new cards to Android Pay unless the bank supports tokenization, and payments are processed directly by them, no longer going through Google.
Android Pay grandfathered cards that were entered in the old app. Those still use virtual credit card if the bank doesn't support tokenization.
After grace period, Android Pay no longer supports adding cards without support from bank and tokenization. For example, I had deleted my Chase card and get an error about bank not being supported if I try to add it.
Ah that's interesting - I wondered if that might be the case. Mine have all been in there for a while. Seems like they'd have to as they're probably losing money every time I make a transaction. I guess I better not delete any of mine then :)
When they say "bank", the term used in payments processing is "issuing bank", or more simply "issuer". The issuer is the entity that processes your application and issues you a card. They are responsible for approving purchases [0] on cards they issue and settling with the merchants.
So that list is basically the set of issuing banks which have done whatever steps are necessary to integrate with Android Pay.
[0] Typical flow looks something like this:
The merchant signs up with a payment processor who issues them a POS; this is the machine you swipe your card through. That swipe goes to the payment processor's network, which looks at the first 6 card digits, otherwise known as the Issuer Identification Number [1], and routes to the appropriate card network. For instance, any card starting with "37xxxx" is going to route to AmEx. The card network then routes to the issuing bank, who actually approves (or not) the transaction.
So POS -> Payment Processor -> Card -> Issuer.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_card_number#Issuer_identi...
I think the point I'm trying to make is that you don't need to be using one of those banks to be using Android Pay. I use Android Pay for tap-to-pay purchases regularly and do not use one of the supported banks. You can use Android Pay with any major credit or debit card.
I'll refer you to here: https://www.android.com/pay/#supported-networks
Note the verbiage on the second section of the supported issuers: "Add a card from any of these participating banks and continue to get the same rewards, benefits, and security of your cards."
I have a feeling that unless the issuing bank is supported, that Google is basically routing the payment through themselves. (Your responses on the other thread seems to confirm this.) So basically, Google bills your card directly, and they somehow route the money to the merchant. (Not sure what would the the "normal" way to do that; a bit out of my depth. I could probably ask people if you really want to know.) This means that, for instance, if your card gives a bonus for restaurants, and you use Android Pay and the issuer is not supported, that you likely will not get that bonus. Because according to your card the merchant is actually Google and not the restaurant.
So basically, Google is acting as a middle man in the transaction. They (somehow) pay the merchant in lieu of your card, then bill your card directly. This would not happen with a supported issuer; the payment would proceed as it normally would without Google and you get all your sweet, sweet reward points.
Thank you, my curiosity is sated :) I think the 'somehow' is pretty simple - I think they just provide their own CC number (or one they've assigned to me) to the merchant when I tap my card, and then charge me later.
Good point about the merchant specific CC points - it seems obvious that Google is losing out in this strategy because they're probably footing part of the merchant fees instead of passing them on to me (or the seller.) I couldn't think of a way that that would matter to me as a user, though.
Are you talking about Android Pay, or Samsung Pay?
Android Pay
I use my Chase debit card with Android Pay almost every day. It really doesn't matter which bank you have, as long as your debit card is supported, and I don't know of any major cards that aren't.
I think a lot of banks are reluctant to let google and apple in on transaction fees so they are reluctant to help make it successful.
I use Android Pay whenever I can -- it's near instant whereas the new chip cards take a comparably long time.
> We’re focused on making it easier than ever to send and receive money with Google Wallet. Keep an eye out for new features and a fresh design in the coming months.
Who's gonna "keep an eye out" for "new features and a fresh design" after they discontinue the thing? What about keeping the existing service working for this "coming months"?
Wait a second, you got to announce it first before you can it. Chronological order has to prevail, else no rollback is possible.
Whatever it was they canned.
A bit off topic but is anyone annoyed with how cards with RF are being replaced with a chip card? I don't know why card issuers are doing that. Mobile devices increasingly have NFC for contactless payment, so why would the card issuers roll that back in favor of chip only?
In an attempt to corner market or security, possibly both?
I literally just ordered the card a few days ago. It has not even arrived yet (estimated delivery was between March 29 and April 3). I was eagerly awaiting the card, looking forward to using it for budgeting and mobile payments. Now I will just have to figure out something else.
One of my favorite things about the Wallet Card was the design. Having a clean front that always surprised people that haven't seen one before. I'd always get comments on it and asked if I worked at Google haha
RIP YetAnotherGoogleService
It was beautiful, alright: http://s3.amazonaws.com/digitaltrends-uploads-prod/2013/12/g...
It was the first time I saw one like this, but not the last. Citi has a flavor of card designed like this now, only thing on the front is the EMV chip and the logo.
Discover has been doing this for a long time too.
This really is too bad, was convenient at some points for me. Any good suggestions that are of the similar load-and-use-as-needed variety?
If you're using a Wallet card now you should get an email about this from Google. They have two cards they suggest moving to, Simple and one from Amex. Looks like they're both giving $20 to users who migrate from Google Wallet.
AMEX requires 3 direct deposits of $500 or more.
Simple does not seem to have that condition.
I'm not sure if I liked data-harvesting combined with my finances anyway.
I just got mine in the post the other week. Great news! /s
I never used the product because I assumed this was a work-around until they could get credit card companies on board and such.
April fools! Oh wait...
I use my wallet card all the time, its is kinda annoying.
And just yesterday I was trying to get one :)
I got one when they came out. Then I found out I had to load it manually like a debit card, and I never ever used it, even once. It's around my house somewhere. I won't miss it.
Sad to see this go, had a lot of potential!
I feel like at this point there should just be a form letter for Google retiring services.
Dear users,
[ ]MAJOR [ ] MINOR
Google service which you
[ ] DEPENDED ON TO DO YOUR JOB [ ] BUILT MAJOR PARTS OF YOUR WORKFLOW ON [ ] LIKED A LOT [ ] HAD BEEN MEANING TO TRY OUT, DAMMIT [ ] HAVE NEVER EVEN HEARD OF
will be discontinued
[ ] LITERALLY TOMORROW [ ] IN SIX MONTHS, AND YOU CAN EXPORT YOUR DATA BUT IT'S IN SOME COMBINATION JSON+XML FORMAT WHICH THE DEVELOPERS THINK IS TOTALLY HIP BUT PROBABLY YOU SHOULD JUST WAIT FOR SOMEONE HIPPER THAN YOU TO WRITE A LIBRARY TO PARSE IT [ ] AND AUTO-MIGRATED TO A SERVICE YOU REALLY DON'T WANT TO USE
Thanks for your support. Please try out
NEW PRODUCT THAT WE ARE INTRODUCING TOMORROW AND SUNSETTING
[ ] WHO KNOWS HAHAHAHA
See you at http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/ !
Love, Google.