In order to avoid running into a situation in which funds aren’t available in your Google Wallet, the development team behind the payment software has added two new features to the mobile application. The first is the ability to setup recurring transfers from a linked bank account. With the ability to set of frequencies ranging from once a week to once a month, money will be automatically transferred into the Google Wallet account from a checking or savings account. Of course, the automatic transfer process can be canceled at any time if the user feels like the Google Wallet account is sufficiently funded.
Detailed on the official Google Commerce blog, the second feature will fire off a notification to the Google Wallet user when funds are low in the account. Similar to low balance alerts provided by finance monitoring services like Mint, the user has the ability to set a specific dollar amount that will trigger an alert. Low balance alerts may be a preferred method of notification for adding money to a Google Wallet account, especially when funds only need to be added sporadically rather than regularly with recurring transfers.
According to details on the blog, updates for both the Android and iOS Google Wallet applications will be launching this week. Google Wallet funds can be used to make hardware and software purchases on Google Play as well as Google Express. In addition, Google Wallet can be used with Tap & Pay locations in retailers as well as preloaded on a physical Google Wallet Card to be utilized at any physical merchant that accepts MasterCard. There are no fees associated with maintaining a Google Wallet balance and Google doesn’t require a Wallet user to keep a minimum balance within their account.