With the release of the latest version of Google Play Services, Google Wallet has gained support for “Traveler QR”. This will let you pay with QR codes when you’re traveling. That’s a huge help in some countries which don’t have a lot of contactless payment infrastructure.
When you get this feature, if you head to the Wallet app’s settings, you should see the “Overseas QR payments” option as it appears in the screenshots below.
Overseas QR payments in the Google Wallet settings
Google Wallet uses the Alipay+ network, which boasts about working in over 210 markets worldwide, where “acceptance tends to be concentrated in areas associated with tourism”, like retail stores, duty-free shops, hotels, restaurants, attractions, and public transportation.
Alipay+ connects 50 mobile payment providers, including Alipay itself in the Chinese mainland, AlipayHK in Hong Kong, GCash in the Philippines, Touch ‘n Go eWallet in Malaysia, TrueMoney in Thailand, Hipay in Mongolia, Kakao Pay, Naver Pay, and Toss Pay in South Korea, OCBC Digital in Singapore, and many more.
So basically, you should be able to scan a payment QR code and pay with Google Wallet wherever any of these payment providers are accepted. Google says Traveler QR is enabled automatically when you travel to any of the supported destinations.
