Available now, Google Wallet is once again expanding its list of countries with five more regions across the globe including several countries in the Balkans.

Announced in a brief community post recently, Google Wallet is now available in a few new countries primarily in the Balkans. The full list includes:

• Albania
• Argentina
• Bosnia and Herzegovina
• North Macedonia
• Montenegro

With this added support, users are able to download the Google Wallet app on their Android devices and, if NFC is supported, use tap-to-pay in stores that offer it. These new countries also support Wear OS’s Google Wallet.

Of course, Google Wallet support varies even more wildly by your bank or credit card provider than it does by country. For example in North Macedonia, as one 9to5Google reader tells us, the functionality is limited to NLB Bank for the time being. It’s a similar story in Albania, where only ProCredit Bank Albania is supported. Google, thankfully, has a handy support page that will detail what banks and providers are supported in each country, including these new five.

Google Wallet supports adding any barcode or QR code manually, new driver’s licenses

Google announced a major Wallet expansion that adds the ability to manually add any barcode or QR code, adds support for IDs in new states, and more.

Rolling out soon, Google Wallet will be able to carry even more of what your traditional wallet might. That starts with expanded support for US driver’s licenses in Google Wallet, which adds support for Maryland today, and will come to Arizona, Colorado, and Georgia “in the coming months.” Google adds that, in the future, these digital IDs will be able to be used in some online applications, such as booking a car with Turo.

Beyond that, Google also says that Wallet is adding support for corporate badges “later this year,” and in Germany, Wallet is adding support for Deutschlandticket local public transport.

Perhaps most exciting, though, is Google Wallet’s new ability to save barcodes and QR codes to your cards manually. There’s no app/developer support needed here. Simply import the code as an image with a description and any relevant information, and you’ll be able to create a digital copy that lives alongside your other cards and passes. Google brings out examples such as a gym membership, transit tickets, parking passes, e-commerce returns, and more, but the possibilities here are pretty much endless. There’s no exact timeline on when this will arrive, though.

Google Wallet is getting a handful of new features at I/O 2023, including a Messages RCS integration for flight boarding passes.

You’ll be able to add a boarding pass to Google Wallet from the Messages app when an airline sends an RCS chat. Google announced earlier that there are over 800 million people with Rich Communications Service and it’s expected to hit a 1 billion milestone later this year.

Users will be able to complete the entire check-in process, like agreeing to safety policies, from that Messages RCS conversation wherein they’ll get the boarding pass that can be viewed and quickly saved to Google Wallet. Of course, it’s up to airlines to add support for this.

The Generic Pass API allows developers to use Google Wallet for gym memberships, auto insurance, reservations, and parking. Google is now adding a Generic Private Pass API to allow for health insurance and ID cards that contain sensitive information.

Google Wallet is also adding support for rotating barcodes that reduce the risk of screenshot-related fraud. This can be used for long-duration transit tickets and events.

Identity-linked passes will let the issue specify an email address that has to match with the currently logged in Google Wallet account before it can be saved. This is to prevent theft, reselling, and transfers.