More Google Wallet state IDs coming in next few months

Back in October, the total number of state IDs available in Google Wallet increased to four. “Digital ID will be a cornerstone for [Google] in the next year” and support for more states in the Wallet app on Android is coming.

This is according to Dong Min Kim, director of product management for Google Wallet, in an interview with American Banker published last week, who also teased a “pipeline” of upcoming additions.

There’s a pipeline of additional states that will come online in the next few months, according to Kim.

The difficulty comes down to different approaches between local (state DMVs) authorities, with the Googler noting how it’s a more difficult challenge than mobile payments, which is more standardized in comparison.  

When Google Wallet was announced at I/O 2022, the company’s stated goal was to replace and virtualize physical wallets. This includes everything from credit and debit cards to transit and event tickets, airline boarding passes, loyalty/gift cards, vaccination records, digital car keys, student IDs, and employee/office badge.

At the time, mobile driver’s licenses and state IDs were pitched as a future area of expansion, with Maryland being the first state to go live that December.

Maryland was joined by Arizona, Colorado, and Georgia ten months later. Apple’s Wallet app also includes those four states, but the company previously announced in September of 2021 that Connecticut, Iowa, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Utah would also support its effort.

Looking beyond the US, Kim said Google is working with other countries to add similar support. 

Meanwhile, Google has “noticed people are storing content and all kinds of documents in Gmail and Google Drive” as a “personal hack” of sorts. Kim said the company thinks “there can be a better way to do that with Google Wallet.” That centralization might possibly explain why the Files app is set to drop its “Important” tab for identity documents in India.

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