Beginning Thursday (Aug. 6), Google Wallet will let parents in the United States create a secure balance for supervised children and teens younger than 18, per the release.
“This tool is designed to help parents teach healthy financial habits while maintaining full oversight of their child’s spending through built-in safeguards,” the release said.
The safeguards include letting parents set up daily spending limits, transaction histories and push notifications to give parents insights into their child’s account activity, and the ability to lock or unlock the balance if a device is missing or “a ‘spending timeout’ is needed,” according to the release.
“Kids can use their Android device or Wear OS devices to securely tap and pay at their favorite local spots wherever Google Pay is accepted,” the release said. “It’s a safe, digital-first way for kids to manage their own money without the need for a formal bank account.”
The new offering comes as digital wallet use rises in stores and online, according to the PYMNTS Intelligence report “Apple Pay @11: Usage is Up, but Competitors are Gaining Ground.”
More than 30% of consumers reported using a mobile wallet in a store during the previous week, more than twice the share reported two years ago, PYMNTS reported this week. Consumers increasingly fund wallet purchases with balances held directly within digital platforms.
The report found that 11.8% of consumers reported using a digital wallet for their most recent in-store purchase in 2025, compared to only 0.9% in 2022.
Meanwhile, 12.1% said they used cash for their most recent store purchase, falling from 17.6% three years earlier. Digital wallets now trail cash by just 0.3 percentage points. And 3.7% paid for their latest in-store wallet purchase using a stored wallet balance, up from 1% in 2023 and marking a 270% increase.
“The movement toward stored balances gives digital wallets a broader role in the payment process,” the report said. “A wallet that once acted mainly as a digital sleeve for a physical card can increasingly function like a small account of its own. The change could help providers create a smoother checkout experience while giving consumers another way to organize funds and make purchases.”
