Google seems to be working on bringing Wallet back in some form after it made the app part of Google Pay (via Android police). According to Mishaal RahmanThe company creates a Google Play Services Wallet interface that will serve as a way to access and manage your debit and transit cards, cards, rewards memberships, and more.
You’re currently managing most of these in Google Pay, and it’s likely that you’ll be able to access the new Wallet UI from the app that Rahman says will still be used for contactless payments. It also looks like the maps you put in your Wallet will be available from elsewhere, as the screenshots show a link that says “get to know what maps in your Wallet will look like across Google.”
Google Wallet started as Google’s NFC payment app in 2011, and served as a place to store payment cards digitally. Over the course of its life, it evolved as a digital (and sometimes physical) payment service over the years to become a sort of Venmo competitor before being merged with Android Pay to create Google Pay in 2018. This app has since become totally renewed, which has turned into much more than an app you use to send friends money and save your digital cards.
This transition has been confusing for some, and the fact that Google Pay is trying to deal with everything related to payments (Google even planned to launch a banking service for it, but the project was scrapped) probably does not help. Bringing Google Wallet back as a separate location to manage your cards can help focus the Google Pay experience back on paying in stores and sending money to friends.