Google Wallet gets even more new features before the month’s end

The Wallet app received a lot of love from Google in the last month or so. If you’re a regular user, this is Wallet’s “one more thing” moment. With May coming to an end, Google announced a bunch of new features coming to Wallet in the next few weeks.

At its yearly I/O event, Google revealed several new features for Wallet and Pay and promised to deliver them very soon. Some of these new features are already starting to show on many devices, as pointed out by 9to5google.

One of the numerous upgrades Google announced this week is related to Nearby Passes. Once Google Wallet gets the update, it will be able to notify users when they’re closing in to a specific location via an alert that will show up on the screen. But there’s more to this feature than simply notifying the user that they’re near one of their favorite locations.

If you happen to have a loyalty card stored in your Google Wallet and you’re near your favorite locale, you’ll not only be alerted by the app, but you’ll also be able to tap the notification to immediately open the loyalty card that you have stored in Wallet.



More importantly, Google is giving Wallet users full control over these Nearby Passes notifications, so you can choose to disable them if you want. Simply head to Pass Details Screen and opt to “get notifications for this loyalty card” for one or more loyalty cards.



In addition to simply notifying the user about their proximity to a specific location, Google Wallet will also display “relevant deals, promotions, and additional services” if the location you’re near offers any of these. They will be shown as cards below the pass.

Besides Nearby Passes notifications, Google is also making it easier for Wallet users to add boarding passes to the app. The feature introduced last year called Auto Linked Passes has just received an upgrade, which allows developers from airlines that integrate loyalty cards to automatically push boarding passes to their users’ wallets after they check in for a flight.

One of the few Google apps that benefits from a coherent development cycle, Wallet has gone a very long way since its inception a few years ago. Arguably the best digital wallet available on Android and iOS, Google Wallet seems to be here to stay for the long haul, something that’s pretty rare for a company like Google, which usually discontinues a large percentage of its projects after just a few years.