Old Google Pay App Now Just a Payment Machine

About a month ago, Google said that it was close to stripping the old Google Pay of any useful feature, leaving you little reason to keep it on your phone. We noted at the time that the only real feature remaining was the NFC payment portion, where you could still use the old app to make payments. While that feature remains, it is now the only feature left.

This week, Google changed the old Google Pay to show nothing but the payment tab, with your attached credit cards up top and your loyalty cards below. On Monday, a reader first tipped us to this change and when I looked, saw the old 4-tab interface still. Then today, that all went away and I’m only left with what you are seeing above.

At this point, you really have no reason to keep the old Google Pay around unless you want this ultra-bare bones experience. The only actions you can still complete are adding or managing cards, opening loyalty program cards, and viewing transaction history. It’s incredibly simple, maybe the way a payment app should be.

And actually, now that I think about it, this is kind of nice. Gone are the ads and supposed promos and offer pushes and social stuff, as is the weird Google bank stuff. The fluff that I can’t imagine many use, isn’t here at all. All you have is the most simple NFC payment interface you could have, with activity history there as well (in the side menu). What more do you really need?

We don’t know if Google will fully kill off this old Google Pay app and take away its payment powers, but until they do, you might enjoy it now more than ever. Hello, simplicity.

Cheers Secret Santa!