Google today announced a major relaunch of Google Pay—which formerly was a relatively simple tap-to-pay app but will now be a complete financial service competing with the likes of Venmo, Mint, Apple Pay, and even some banks. The new Pay is available as an Early Access app in the Google Play store as of this afternoon, alongside the original and much less ambitious Google Pay—which is now tagged as “old version.”

In addition to the simple tap-to-pay features offered in the previous app, users of the new Google Pay can directly link bank accounts and credit cards to the app. This allows for AI-driven insights into spending and saving, replacing much of the functionality of your own bank’s online banking app with Google Pay, and more.

Privacy

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  The important bit here: your personal information from Pay will not be sold to anyone and will not be shared with any other Google services for ad targeting, either. [credit:
  Jim Salter ]

We can already hear readers screaming about the privacy implications of allowing Google directly into your banking, credit card, and payment histories—and we don’t really blame you. Google clearly heard those cries coming as well and seems to be doing what it can to allay those concerns.