Google Pay to kill its web app feature

Google Pay
(Image credit: Google)

Google is transforming its Google Pay app into a personal finance powerhouse, and has made some grand announcements recently. Amidst all that, it has also silently come up with a notification announcing that its web app will be not available from early January. It is also set to add fee for instant transfers.

Google Pay had hitherto allowed money transfers (to and fro) from both its mobile app or from pay.google.com --- its web app page.

Google Pay has now put out a notice that its web app site will not work from January next year.

“Starting early in 2021, you won’t be able to use pay.google.com to send and receive money from other people. To send and receive money, use the new Google Pay app,” the Google Pay said.

Essentially what it means is users can still manage payment methods on the web app, but peer-to-peer payments will not be possible.

Fee for Google Pay transfer to debit cards

In another development, Google Pay that had zero fees when transferring money will now levy a 1.5% fee. But wait. It is only for instant transfers. Which means that when you transfer money to a debit card, it will be imposed the 1.5% charge.

The usual 1 to 3 day transfers would not suffer any levy. 

Google has also announced that the original Google Pay app will stop working in January. 

According to 9to5Google, "From that date, you won’t be able to send or receive payments from the original app, though it sounds like the original app will continue to work for managing payment methods for NFC mobile payments and such."

As we said, Google recently introduced several features in its Pay feature for both Android and iOS users which have been first rolled out in the US.

Its new revamp can help users with transferring money and budgeting amongst other things. 

The new change focuses on users friends and businesses, making it much easier to ping funds to them with a new group payment feature. 

The app will let you pay your bill at commonly used outlets, such as restaurants, as well as redeem money off discounts and other promotional offers.

Balakumar K
Senior Editor

Over three decades as a journalist covering current affairs, politics, sports and now technology. Former Editor of News Today, writer of humour columns across publications and a hardcore cricket and cinema enthusiast. He writes about technology trends and suggest movies and shows to watch on OTT platforms.