Google has announced the return of Google Wallet, a service that's going to latch onto current Google Pay functions and be the home for all your cards - including your ID. 

Announced at Google I/O, we'd previously heard of the changes from leaked Android 13 code, but it's now official - and in the coming weeks we'll be seeing Google Wallet on Android and WearOS devices.

Google Wallet will replace your physical wallet, allowing you to securely keep all your cards in one place, including things like tickets, vaccination passes, boarding cards and in the future, drivers licences, ID cards and digital car keys. 

If you're a Google Pay user that will sound familiar, because you can already add many of those things to Google Pay - certainly, vaccine certificates, boarding passes and loyalty cards can already be stored there, although it appears that there will also be support for NFC functions too.

One interesting element that Google also announced at Google I/O was embracing virtual cards. This isn't new, but the idea is to randomise payment card details, so you're not giving out your actual card number when you make a purchase - it's common with existing digital banking services already.

So this looks like something of a rebranding, returning the Google Wallet naming that was phased out a few years ago around the launch of Google Pay.

The interesting addition is the drivers licence and ID side of things. This may well be limited to the US, with Google saying that it was in conversations with various state authorities to enable this functionality.

So while this is news, it's not huge news and Google Pay users probably won't spot a huge change - but it's arriving in the next few weeks and we'll then be able to see if there are any real changes.