Google Pay as a service will still exist, but people will no longer be able to send money to each other using it.
“We are announcing the end of Google Pay P2P, our peer-to-peer payments service, in the United Kingdom. Starting from 6 September 2019, you’ll no longer be able to send and request money through Google Pay’s P2P service in Gmail or on pay.google.com,” Google said in an email to users. “If you have a net positive Google Pay balance in your account with us, you can transfer these funds to your bank account. Please sign in to your Google payments profile to transfer your balance into a bank account. If you have a zero balance in your account, no further action is required on your part.”
When Google Pay was launched in 2018, Google Wallet was rebranded as Google Pay Send, and P2P payments were directly integrated into it. Despite the loss of that capability, people will still be able to pay with stored cards and use the service’s other features.
There hasn’t been any word on whether Pay Send will be discontinued in other countries as well.
In other European Google news, European Union officials are looking for feedback on Google’s attempts to shut down two antitrust investigations.
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Sources revealed to Bloomberg that Google started showing a box with links to rival websites in March in addition to the usual search results in response to the EU investigating complaints that less search traffic was going to these competitor sites.
Regulators have reportedly sent out screenshots of Google’s box showing three restaurant booking sites, asking various travel companies for their opinions on the sites. In addition, the EU asked recruitment companies about how links to job websites have been displayed. The companies have until June 13 to send initial responses.
The links box is similar to a solution Google has already been using to comply with a 2017 EU order that required the tech giant to give equal treatment to other shopping comparison websites. It’s a fix that its rivals, including Yelp, don’t believe is enough to remedy the situation.
