Google Pay: How to Set Up and Use

May 9 2022

Mobile Apps

Speaker 1: Google pay is good for a lot more than just making purchases in stores with your phone, you can use it to send and receive money between friends and contacts like PayPal and Venmo, withdraw cash from ATMs, track your spending across your bank accounts, and even use it as your bus pass today. I’m gonna show you how to set up Google, pay on your phone and put it to work for you. If you’re new to Google pay, we’ll start with how to set up the app on your phone.

Then we’ll get into how to use some of its best features. If you’re a Google pay veteran, feel free to skip ahead to some of the features you might not be familiar with. Yeah.

Got it. Okay. Let’s get [00:00:30] you ready to leave your credit cards at home Speaker 1: To begin.

Of course, we need to make sure you have the Google pay app install. Google pay is available for both Android and iOS. So yes, you can use it on your iPhone or iPad.

If you don’t want to use apple pay. For some reason, you will need a Google account though. But if you use email at all, you’re good to go.

If not, it’s easy to sign up for a new account. Samsung phones come with Samsung pay installed, but that’s not the same thing. [00:01:00] So you need to download Google pay from the Google play store. If you have a Google pixel phone like this one, you might see that you have two apps.

Pre-installed Google pay. And G trust me. I’m confused about this too.

This one called Google pay with the G logo is primarily used for in-store purchases. This one also called Google pay, but with the wavy logo and listed as G on your phone is the newer version of the app and has more features. Speaker 1: You can still use the older version of Google pay at least for now, but [00:01:30] this is the one we’re gonna be focusing on today.

I’m gonna show you how to use Google pay for Android, but it’s basically the same for iOS. Now that we’re all looking at the same Google pay app. Let’s walk through the setup process.

When you first open the app, you’ll be asked to confirm the country where you’ll be using Google pay. Not a lot of choices as of yet. And I’ll pick United States since that’s where I live next, you’ll be prompted to select the Google account you want to use for Google pay.

If you’re signed into more than one on your phone, choose the one you wish to use and tap, continue, or sign into another account. Not listed here. [00:02:00] Now you’ll need to enter and verify your phone number. Speaker 1: When you receive the verification code, enter it here.

If you’re lucky, the code might even autofill. When the confirmation arrives, tap next to set up your privacy preferences, you can opt in here to allow friends to find you when they wanna send you money using the Google pay app. If you want to be discoverable tap yes or not.

Now, if you want to disable this option or come back to it later, if you plan on receiving money from your friends fairly often, you’ll probably wanna leave that turned on next. You can opt in to receive cash back on your purchases. Again, you can choose to set this up later, [00:02:30] but I’ll select yes, earn rewards.

So I can show you how this works. Lastly, choose whether or not you wanna share your purchasing habits with Google to help personalize your Google pay app experience. Normally I’d say no to this, but for demonstration purposes, I’ll leave it on for now.

If you don’t have one already, you’ll be prompted to set up a screen lock on your phone. So just anyone can’t come along and use Google pay. You’ll have different choices here based on the phone you’re using.

But in my case, I’ll pick the pin option. Speaker 1: Once that’s done, you’re all set. The Google pay app is ready to use. [00:03:00] I’ve been using Google pay for a while now.

So I already have some payment methods set up a list of my recent activity and some cards I’ve added in the past. So yours may look a little empty at first, but I’m gonna show you how to add all those things right now to start spending money with Google pay. Let’s add a credit card to the account, to do that.

Tap here at the top of the screen, and then add a payment method. I already have some cards set up so I can choose one of them for contactless payments, or I can link my PayPal account to use that for purchases. But if you’re starting fresh, [00:03:30] tap the plus sign next to credit or debit card.

Now you can enter your information. Two ways. You can use your phone’s camera to scan the credit card or debit card.

Enter the security code and enter or confirm the address associated with the card, or just enter the card info manually. Then scroll through the terms of service and tap. Save the apple, reach out to contact your banking institution, accept your bank’s terms to continue.

And when your bank verifies [00:04:00] your card, it’s ready to use with Google pay. Now whenever you’re out shopping and see one of these logos at the checkout, just activate Google pay and hold your phone up to the reader to complete your purchase. But the benefits of Google pay don’t stop there.

Speaker 1: Google pay can be used to send money to anyone in your contact list or anyone who shares their email address or phone number with you. And even better people can send money to you, but there is a catch this back and forth works best. If both parties already use Google pay.

For example, let’s say I owe my colleague Patrick £5 [00:04:30] in the Google pay app. I’ll tap on, send a request search for Patrick’s contact info and select it on this screen. Since I’m sending him money, I’ll tap, pay, enter the amount.

You can enter a note to remind the person why you’re sending the money and tap the check mark to continue at the bottom of the next screen. You can choose which payment method you want to use for this transaction. There’s also the option to choose a fun animation to go along with your payment.

If you like when you’re ready to send it, tap the pay button at the bottom [00:05:00] and the money is on its way. Since I know Patrick uses Google pay, he’ll be able to accept that payment in his Google pay app. That also means that besides me sending him money, I also have the option to request money from him with this button right here.

If he owed me five bucks, I would enter the amount and a note here Speaker 1: And then send the request. No cute little animations here though. So now here’s where the catch comes in.

If I choose another contact from my list, I can tell they don’t use Google pay [00:05:30] because I only get the option to pay them. I can’t request money from them. I also get this notification that this is the first transaction between Lexi and I.

And to verify that this is indeed the person I’m trying to send money to. When I press pay, Lexi will get a notification that I have tried to send her money and she’ll be prompted to download the app and set up Google pay. I don’t know about you, but if I got a notification like that, I doubt I’d wanna set up a new app just to get the payment.

I’d probably ask them to figure out another way to do it. So unless your family or friend group is already committed to using Google pay, I’m not sure how useful it’s gonna be [00:06:00] for exchanging money between one another. Speaker 1: But even if that’s the case, there are other reasons why you still might want to use Google pay.

Wouldn’t it be nice to get paid for making purchases with Google pay while it turns out you can, from the pay screen, tap the view offers button, and you’ll be presented with a number of special offers available to you. As a Google pay customer, there are different offers that allow you to pay in-store or online in categories like dining, retail, and local deals. You can see all of your activated offers right here.

The pub near my house offers four and a half percent cash back. When [00:06:30] I use this card, when I visit not too shabby, tap an offer. When you find one you like, and you’ll be prompted to enroll an eligible card.

If you haven’t already select the cards you want to activate or tick this box to enroll all that are eligible. Speaker 1: Go back to the offer page and you can see the terms of the deal. Click activate to finish up.

Now, when you use the eligible cards, you’ll get that discount free trial or cash back. And if the merchant doesn’t allow Google pay for checkout, you’ll still receive the offer. When you use the enrolled card, [00:07:00] if you use one or more banking apps on your phone, it might be tough to keep track of your overall financial picture.

You can use Google pay to track your spending on the insights tab. I have my bank of America accounts linked to the app so I can see my current balances for checking in savings. A notification of a large transaction that looks out of the ordinary, how much I’ve spent this week and spending organized by which businesses I’ve been patronizing.

You’re gonna have to take my word on a lot of this since I’m not trying to show you all of my financial info. Speaker 1: So I’ve blurted out on the screen, but I will say it is nice to have all [00:07:30] this information in one place to set this up for yourself, tap the show, all accounts button, then add account and select to track balances and spending Google pay uses the plaid platform to link the app to the bank accounts. You enroll.

So tap here. If those terms seem agreeable to you, then tap, continue now, select your bank or search for one. That’s not on the list and enter your online banking, username and password.

You’ll need to verify your identity via text message or a phone call and enter the [00:08:00] code here. Now select the accounts you wanna track in Google pay and success. It might take a bit for your transactions to show up in the app, but once they’re there, you’ll be able to get a clearer picture of where your money goes every month to see some of the other Google pay options available to you.

Speaker 1: Go back to the pay screen in the app and tap the pay contactless button. Scroll down to the bottom and look for the add a card button we’ve already covered debit and credit cards, but you also have the option to add [00:08:30] retailer loyalty cards, gift cards, and transit cards. Under loyalty cards.

You can add rewards cards from things like supermarkets, airlines, gas stations, and more. Just find the card you’re looking for. Scan the barcode on the physical card or enter the membership number manually.

Same with gift cards rather than needing to keep the physical card with you. Just enter the card info into the app and use it to make your purchases tap on the transit card option. And you can look for the transit agency in your area or search for the city you’re in.

You can then add a transit [00:09:00] card or pass that you already have or purchase a new one, and then use your phone to pay your fair when boarding the bus or entering the platform. This seems like it would be especially useful in traveling to new cities where you want to take advantage of public transit. And speaking of transportation, many popular ride share apps like Uber and Lyft, let you set Google pay is your payment option.

You also may have noticed Ticketmaster listed among the various cards I have stored on here. That’s because you can use Google pay to store certain mobile concert tickets. Look for the option to add the ticket to your Google pay wallet when you purchased your tickets online.

Speaker 1: [00:09:30] So those are the basics of Google pay while it’s maybe not the most convenient option for sharing money with friends and family, it still offers a lot of functionality and is a great option for reducing the number of cards you have to carry around in your wallet.

Thanks for watching.

And I’ll see you next time.