So in the beginning there was Android Pay, which later became Google Pay in the US and Europe.

For India, Google launched an app called Tez (and later renamed Google Pay) there which was more adapted for the India market, doing things like phone number identities and UPI integration.

This worked so well in India, that they promoted the head of the India app to be in charge of payments everywhere, and so his plan was to replace the global Google Pay with Indian Google Pay. They started with this in the US, and it flopped hard, both in terms of uptake and reviews. It turns out in many non-India markets (including the US) people don't really want to accept the tradeoffs of phone number identities for anything that doesn't directly compete with their SMS app.

So the leader responsible resigned, and the new leadership instead updated the old global Google Pay as Google Wallet. India stuck with Google Pay (formerly known as Tez) since that worked there, and the rest of the world never moved from Google Pay (fka Android Pay) to Google Pay (fka Tez), so only had a single Google Pay at one time. However, Google had now split their userbase across two apps so was scared to shut either there, so the US stayed in limbo for two years.

This is now resolving the US based limbo by shutting down Google Pay (fka Tez) in the US, so that the US joins Europe in only using Google Wallet (fka Google Pay fka Android Pay).

In short:

Before:

- India: Google Pay (fka Tez)

- Europe: Google Pay (fka Android Pay)

- US: Google Pay (fka Android Pay) and GPay (fka Tez)

After:

India: Google Pay (fka Tez)

US & Europe: Google Wallet (fka Google Pay fka Android Pay)

This should be the canonical answer pasted to the top. You forget to mention the head of Tez was actually based in Singapore, though, and Singapore was the one other country that was eligible for the "new" gPay.

What's unclear to me, now as an outside, is whether or not Google is planning to migrate the actually useful features of gPay (p2p payments, payment/expense tracking, loyalty/discounts) to Wallet, or if Wallet is going to only host cards & handle tap-to-pay. I certainly hope for the former, and if they weren't going to that they'd have said so in the email.

I do not have any insider information but chances of that happening are next to zero. The reason is pretty simple. P2P money movement is very expensive per transaction and does not generate revenue. It is typically a growth strategy. However Wallet app ships with the phone so growth problem is solved. Google would be happy if you use Venmo or something for P2P.

> US & Europe: Google Wallet (fka Google Pay fka Android Pay)

I think you’re missing an fka Google Wallet in that chain. Wikipedia has a family tree under the “History” section for that service (later renamed): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Pay_Send

This should be a top level comment. Very informative, thanks!

google pay lore master

I have never been able to get one of the Pay apps to work. One of them fails (on I think phone verification actually, funny) and I've never been able to resolve it even with Google One support.

Then I've always been able to add cards and use tap to pay.

This might explain my confusion.

Google Pay was rebranded as Google Wallet in the rest of the world in 2022. Only US and Singapore kept the Google Pay brand. (No idea why)

https://www.androidpolice.com/google-pay-becomes-google-wall...

It's because the VP in charge of Google Pay was based in Singapore and he ensured it was designed for that market (as well as the US).

Talk about Conway's Law!

Probably regulatory compliance.