The Possibility of Google Wallet-Rakuten Wallet Integration

Google Wallet, the Android digital wallet management service, is expected to undergo a major renewal with the addition of new features. These include the addition of new transit IC (e-money) cards like “ICOCA” from JR West and “TOICA” from JR Central, the rollout of a new “e-wallet” section for NFC touch payments including SoftBank’s “PayPay Money,” KDDI’s “au PAY,” and NTT Docomo’s “d-Payment,” and support for e-wallet charging and peer-to-peer transfers by linking bank accounts from Mitsubishi UFJ Bank, Mizuho Bank, Japan Post Bank, and Rakuten Bank.

Now, information hinting at another major new feature has been discovered by analyzing the HTML code of the “Check supported payment methods (Japan)” page on the official Google Wallet Help site. Please note that this is not an official announcement from Google or its related companies.

The newly discovered content points to an integration with Rakuten Wallet, a Financial Services Agency-registered cryptocurrency exchange from the Rakuten Group. This came to light after a commented-out piece of code was added in mid-October 2025 to a hidden section of the “Check supported payment methods (Japan)” page’s HTML.

<!-- future: paypay-nfc, rakuten-wallet -->

This commented-out code mentions “rakuten-wallet” in addition to “paypay-nfc,” which likely refers to NFC touch payments for PayPay Money. The word “future” suggests that more content will be added in the time to come.

While this code doesn’t reveal much yet, it’s noteworthy that it specifically says “rakuten-wallet” rather than “rakuten-pay” or “rakuten-cash.” This leads to speculation about features such as checking your balance in Google Wallet through Rakuten Wallet integration, exchanging cryptocurrencies managed in Rakuten Wallet for Rakuten Cash, and then using that Rakuten Cash for Rakuten Pay NFC payments via Google Pay (e-wallet).

In the United States, cryptocurrency-based credit cards like the Coinbase Card (now Base) and BitPay have been supported by Google Pay (now Google Wallet) since 2021. While the speculated Rakuten Wallet integration is very likely to have different specifications, the idea is not entirely far-fetched.

We will report again as soon as we have more information.

Source: Google