Google has announced that it will remove its Wallet for digital goods API from its list of offerings after three years on the market. The company’s other Wallet offerings and partnerships, including the Wallet mobile app, will not be affected.
Retailers that sell digital goods and offer Google Wallet as a payment option on their web sites will have approximately three months to find an alternative solution. The service will be “retired” on March 2, 2015, according to an announcement from Google.
When Google initially launched Google Wallet for digital goods in 2011, “we wanted to make it simple for game developers to accept payments for digital goods on their own desktop gaming web sites,” the company reported in a statement. “The industry has matured a lot since then, providing a number of alternative payment solutions to choose from.”
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Other Wallet solutions still available include:
- Instant Buy, which provides web and app payments for physical goods and services;
- Wallet app, which includes the Google Wallet app and Tap & Pay;
- Google Marketplaces within the Google Play Store; and
- In-App Payments, including Play In-App Billing and Chrome Web Store Managed In-App.
Merchants that manage digital inventories and currently are using Google Wallet for digital goods must migrate to the Managed In-App Payments API or another payments solution prior to March 2, 2015.
