Old Google Pay in the US will become useless in April

It isn't exactly out of the ordinary that Google retires an app or service in favor of a new one. Often, but not always, it waits for the new version to at least be ready for the all old users to switch to. That didn't actually happen smoothly in the transition to YouTube Music but hopefully, Google Pay will be a different story. No, users are just being pushed to a new version of the Google Pay app and the company will be forcing users' hands by making the old one practically useless in April.

The new Google Pay announced late last year is both a redesign of the old app as well as a consolidation of its confusing "G Pay" brand of the past. It wasn't a one-for-one replacement of the old Google Pay, with some of its features moved to other parts of the Google Play services framework. That said, it also added more features that the old app didn't have and will never have since it has been deprecated.

Not all users may have moved over to the new Google Pay app by now for one reason or another but they may have no other choice soon. Come April 5, the old Google pay app will lose its ability to send or receive money, view past transactions, or even see your remaining balance. In other words, you'll still be able to open the app but can't do anything else unless you move to the new app.

This change, however, applies only to the US, according to Google's confirmation to Android Police. The new Google Pay app isn't available in other markets yet so those will keep the status quo, at least for now. Curiously, there is no mention of other markets that do have the new Google Pay app already.

The new Google Pay app is apparently still marked as Early Access, suggesting it's still in pre-release development. That could change before April 5, however, and there's still plenty of time to polish up the app before that deadline.