Google has finally brought its new Wallet app to India. You can download it from the Play Store. This gives you a “single, organized destination for fast, secure access to your everyday essentials”, Google says – things like boarding passes, loyalty cards, event tickets, public transport tickets, and gift cards.
Payments are missing as you can see, but that’s because, unlike everywhere else in the world, in India the Google Pay app remains available “for all things payments”.
So, for Wallet, Google has initially partnered with “over 20 of India’s top brands”. For movie and event tickets, PVR and INOX are supported, while for boarding passes Google has partnered with Air India, Air India Express, and online travel companies like MakeMyTrip, Ixigo, and Easemytrip. If you own a Pixel, you can simply take a screenshot of a boarding pass and then add it to Wallet.
For loyalty programs and gift cards, you have Flipkart (Supercoins), Dominos, Shoppers Stop, Pinelabs, EasyRewardz, and Twid. For public transport, there’s support for Hyderabad Metro, Kochi Metro, VRL Travels, and Abhibus.
You can also use your Android phone as your corporate badge, a service offered in partnership with system integrators Wavelynx and Alert Enterprise. And you can create new passes in Wallet from images containing a barcode or a QR code, like airline boarding passes for unsupported airlines, luggage tags, and parking receipts.
And if you have smart personalization settings turned on in Gmail, some tickets and passes you get via email will automatically appear in Google Wallet.
