The increasingly globalized and tech-savvy century that we live in demands that technological and digital services should break barriers of geographical restrictions to be accessible to people of more and more countries.
To this end, one shouldn’t be kept off from availing of a new feature simply because the makers have ticked off their country from the list of subscribing countries. However, striking a bright note in this regard, it was noted as of today that one of these restrictions is dwindling, as some Huawei Watch 2 users who were fretting over an update that disabled Google Pay (then called Android Pay) in countries apart from the US and the UK, have started getting their access back. While it was only a happy and not the whole picture, recently updated information completes the story of which countries have been currently been enabled to make Google Pay payments with their smartwatches.
Google has reportedly confirmed official support in Spain, China, and Australia, which is a good start in opening up geographical restrictions to technology. As of now, Google Pay is only accessible on Android Wear (now, Wear OS) devices in the US and the UK, but with slack enforcement, users in other nations could also avail of the service for tap-and-pay transactions. But when Oreo updates were soon to emerge, Google tapped its baton on geographical restrictions, confining usage to the US and the UK.
Nevertheless, Android Wear has become Wear OS today, delighting the user base of Google smartwatches in Canada, Spain, and Australia as they join the smartwatch-payment club.
Along with using NFC-equipped watches for regular mobile payments, the users in Australia can also pay for single-trip tickets on select rail and ferry lines by using their Wear OS devices with the Opal ticketing system.
While adding on to the list of supported Wear OS Google Pay countries from 2 to 5 is a decent initial drive, as is said, well begun is only half done. Although there is no formally announced public ETA for any additional expansion as of now, Google stated that it’s “working to roll out support for more countries soon.”
Adding icing to the cake, Google has launched promotions in Australia and Canada with incentives of reward offering a $10 credit to the users for referring a friend (up to 10, or $100) where each friend also gets $10. Both these impressive offers shall run till March 14, starting today. It’s no wonder then that the Google pay users in Australia and Canada would now happily spread the word.
This service extension driven by Google pay propels it towards actualizing its tagline, “A better way to pay”.
