The Google Pay refresh that was teased yesterday is now official.
A new Google Pay app has launched with a redesigned look with a new icon. It aims to make it easier for you to pay for things, including both transferring money to your friends as well as paying at retailers, as well as helping you to track your spending and manage your money.
When it comes to transferring money to family and friends, you can send money to an individual or create a group to send and receive cash for dinner, bills, and so on. You can include messages with your payments, and both the amount sent and the message you send are only viewable between the people involved. Google will also help you do the math when splitting a bill to determine who owes what.
Google Pay will still allow you to make contactless payments at businesses, and you can now see the retailers where you've used Google Pay inside the app. You can even find nearby gas stations, see their prices, and pay for fuel all within the app at 30,000 gas stations across the country.
Loyalty cards and offers will be supported inside the new Google Pay app, too. There will be deals from brands like Burger King, Etsy, REI, Sweetgreen, Target, and Warby Parker inside the app, and you can activate them to have them automatically applied when you pay with your link Google Pay card in-store or online.
When it comes to money management, you can use the app to view the total balance from all your accounts at once and get reminders about upcoming bill payments. Weekly summaries will show you where and how much you've spent recently, including a breakdown of what you spent at each business, and you can track your spending trends over time.
And because this is Google we're talking about, there's also a search function in the new Google Pay app that'll help you filter through all of your transactions to find a specific one that you're looking for. You can search for things like "Food", "Gas", or even a specific item like "Tent" to find transactions and receipts that you took a photo of.
The new Google Pay app is launching on Android and iPhone.
Finally, Google is indeed getting into the banking game, just like a rumor from earlier this year said it would. Plex is a bank account that's integrated into Google Pay and will include checking and savings accounts with no monthly fees, overdraft charges, or minimum balance requirements.
Google is partnering with 11 banks and credit unions to make Plex happen. The first banks to work with Plex will be Citi and Stanford Federal Credit Untion, and the others joining later on will include SEFCU, BankMobile, BBVA, Seattle Bank, BMO, Green Dot, The Harbor Bank of Maryland, First Indepence Bank, and Coastal Community Bank.
Plex by Google Pay will launch in 2021 and you can join the waitlist in the new Google Pay app.
