Google Wallet gets Alipay Plus support with Traveler QR

Last month, we spotted Google working on “Traveler QR,” a new Wallet payment option for the Alipay Plus network in Southeast Asia, and now it looks like it’s finally arriving.

Google Play services version 26.44 starts heading out to Android users today, and in its release notes, Google shares that Traveler QR support is going live in Wallet. We already saw Google’s Traveler QR documentation appear online, and it felt like just a matter of time before the feature would get its official debut.

While we’re most used to making Google Wallet payments through NFC-based tap interactions, Traveler QR — as you can probably guess from its name — is an optical solution, with payments conducted by either scanning a merchant’s QR code with your phone’s camera, or having them scan one on your screen.

The system works on the Alipay Plus network, which operates across Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and more. Those include a lot of tourism hot spots, where we imagine that seamless payments through your Google account could come in pretty handy.

Based on Google’s documentation, it sounds like the interface is going to be geofenced: “Traveler QR enables automatically when you travel to any of the supported destinations.” In case that doesn’t ever show up, look in Wallet settings for “Overseas QR payments” like we’ve previewed for you above, and enable the needed location permissions.

After that, you should be able to pull funds from your Wallet account and spend them where Alipay Plus payments are accepted.