Google Pay and Wallet launch in PH, supporting major card firms and GCash

Google Pay and Google Wallet have officially launched in the Philippines, initially supporting cardholders of Mastercard, Visa, Chinabank, EastWest Bank, RCBC, and Zed Mastercard credit cards, along with GCash via its Tap-to-Pay feature.

This launch, facilitated by partnerships with local financial institutions, aims to accelerate the Philippines' transition towards a cashless and digitally inclusive economy by offering convenient and secure tap-to-pay options.

Beyond contactless payments, Google Wallet can store digital items such as boarding passes, event tickets, loyalty cards, and digital car keys.

Google Pay utilizes tokenization, a security measure that replaces sensitive card details with a digital token on the user's device to lower fraud risk.

Travelers can use Google Wallet for contactless payments overseas and receive flight-related notifications.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) classifies Google Pay and Apple Pay as technology service providers that must register as operators of payment systems (OPS).