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Google redesigns the Pay app to take on Venmo and Mint

·2 min read

Google is making major changes to its Pay app to make sending money to friends easier and help people better understand their finances. The new interface will focus on your relationships rather than transactions, meaning it groups your activity by the people and businesses you’ve interacted with. You’ll also be able to use Pay to make purchases in restaurants, gas stations and parking services within the app in select cities starting today. The updated app is available to download on Android and iOS today.

In contrast to the way Venmo is currently laid out, Pay’s new home page will show your favorite friends and businesses. You can tap your partner or roommate to send a payment to them instead of having to search their name. If you’re grabbing your daily Panera order, for example, you can hit the icon for that business from the home page.

Since Pay’s launch in 2015, it now sees more than 150 million monthly users in 30 countries. “But there’s so much more we can do,” general manager for Google Pay Caesar Sengupta said. Managing our finances is too difficult for most Americans today. A new Insights section of the app can help ease that stress, Google said. This page will show all your spending and pull information from connected bank accounts, credit and debit cards. It will remind you when bills are due, alert you to large purchases (in case of suspicious activity) and show you your weekly expenditure.

This sounds a lot like finance app Mint, but since it’s a Google product, Pay also integrates a powerful search tool to surface insights. “Google Pay has a semantic understanding of the word food and it also understands places where I’ve bought food,” said director of product management Josh Woodward.

You can search for food or “gas last month” and find those specific transactions. You can even get more nitty gritty, especially if you’ve linked your cards and photos. If you took a picture of your receipt at REI, for instance, you can search for the word “tent” and Google will even scan your Photos to find that word and pull up that transaction.

With all that sensitive data saved in one spot, privacy and security are obviously important.

Google wants to help you better understand your finances and is announcing something called Plex to do that.

This story is developing, please refresh for updates.

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  • Nio To Launch Two Back-To-Back Sedans In A Challenge To Tesla Model 3

    Nio Inc (NYSE: NIO) is entering the sedan market, with plans to launch two back-to-back models, the electric vehicle company's CEO William Li said on the quarterly earnings call Tuesday.What Happened: The Chinese EV maker will launch a sedan "soon" and is currently developing another one, Li said without elaborating further on the timeline, as first reported by Bloomberg. "So the next two products in line will both be sedans."The "Nio Day" annual event, where the company typically unveils new products and technologies, is slated to happen in January, Nio confirmed to Benzinga last month, and the new sedan launch could come at this time.Nio typically aims to roll out one new vehicle every year, and the second sedan launch would be unlikely to happen until the company's next annual event.Why It Matters: Nio has been speculated to be launching a high-performance, premium all-electric sedan dubbed ET7 for a while, and Li's comments don't come as a surprise.The company's sedan offerings are said to be vying to compete with Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) Model 3 sedan vehicles. Nio's stock is on a meteoric rise but the Elon Musk-led company is a threatening presence in its home market of China, especially with the upcoming locally-made Model Y launch. Li, in August, said Nio was planning to expand internationally by the end of 2020, starting with Europe.The EV maker on Thursday reported an adjusted net loss of RMB 996 million, or $146.7 million, in the third quarter, with total revenues surging 146.4.% year-over-year to $666.6 million.Citron Research's Andrew Left, a notorious short-seller, said late last week that Nio has entered "unchartered territory that can never be justified," making a bullish call that it's time for investors to cash out.Price Action: After a 2.17% gain during trading hours, NIO ADRs dipped 1.05% during after-hours at $46.10.See Also: Nio Unveils 100-kWh Battery, Upgrade Plans: What Investors Should KnowBenzinga editor Neer Varshney contributed to this report.Photo courtesy: WikimediaSee more from Benzinga * Click here for options trades from Benzinga * Goldman Plans Second Round Of Job Cuts In 3 Months: Report * Alibaba Says Luxury Brand Coach Saw Singles Day Sales Rise 700%(C) 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

  • Is Boeing Stock A Buy Now As 737 Max Grounding Lifted, Covid-19 Vaccine Hopes Rise?

    Is Boeing stock a good buy now as the 737 Max grounding is lifted? Look at the aerospace giant's fundamentals and stock chart.