Google Wallet planned for children – Parents should retain control

With Google Wallet, users can pay at the checkout or save tickets digitally using the NFC chip on their cell phone – The company has now confirmed that the app will soon be available specifically for children. According to this, it will soon be possible to enable Google Wallet for connected accounts via Family Link –, a function that allows families to control how their younger members use Google services –.

Google has now described these plans to the tech portal 9to5Google. In the coming year, children with NFC-enabled smartphones will be able to pay in stores via their devices using the familiar PIN, fingerprint or Face ID authentication. However, online payments via Google Wallet will not be possible for children. Tickets and gift cards will also be usable, but ID documents or health cards will not.

Children's wallets under supervision

However, parents should have full control. Every new debit or credit card added requires their approval, transactions can be tracked and cards can be removed from the wallet if necessary.

The features are nothing entirely new: Google already introduced payment for children to the same extent on the Fitbit Ace LTE smartwatch a few months ago. As Google now says, with a positive response, the function is now also being extended to Google Wallet. Of course, this is always with a view to security and the ability for parents to control the function. On the one hand, they might be pleased that their children now have one less thing they can lose. If the bus ticket and debit card are stored in the cell phone, a wallet is no longer necessary. And the little ones can probably keep a better eye on their smartphone. It would also be easier to keep track of children's spending – if they only spent their pocket money via Google Wallet. Upper limits for children's spending – for example 20 euros per month with a stored debit card – are apparently not yet planned, at least the 9to5Google report does not mention this.

Tests to start in 2025

Next year, Google plans to test its Wallet for children with users in several countries, including the USA. It is not yet clear when the function will come to Germany. Mobile payments have played a rather marginal role here so far. According to figures from the European Central Bank from 2022, it accounts for around two percent of transactions in stationary retail. Even a steep growth trend since then is unlikely to have helped mobile payment out of its niche existence. Germany is not an isolated case; mobile payment was rarely more widespread in 2022 in almost the entire eurozone. The exceptions were Finland and Latvia with six percent each. The front-runner was the Netherlands with ten percent.

Providers do not always have it easy in the European Union either: even ten years after the launch of Apple Pay in the EU, not all functions are available – due to a lack of providers entering into the necessary partnerships with Apple.

(nen)