New features announced by Google today for its wallet do not support NFC, but the search giant made it clear it continues to support the technology for in-store payments.

Google’s new Wallet app makes it easier for users to send money using email addresses and to store loyalty cards and offers.

But the loyalty cards use bar codes and offers must be redeemed visually by merchants, said Google in a blog post today. Google last month ended its NFC-enabled loyalty and gift cards.

The search giant, after introducing its wallet in September of 2011, had said it would enable redemption of coupons and offers along with payment in one tap, which it called SingleTap.

It’s NFC-enabled wallet has struggled since the beginning, hurt in part by refusal of major U.S. mobile operators in the Isis joint venture, Verizon Wireless, AT&T Mobility and T-Mobile USA, to support it. Google Wallet chief Osama Bedier departed the company, and Google reassigned many of its wallet staffers earlier this year.

But as if to pre-empt speculation that it was abandoning NFC, Google in its announcement today of the expanded funds transfers service and bar-code based loyalty cards, noted that consumers can today tap to pay with the wallet on “29 different NFC-enabled devices.

“We also have more NFC-enabled devices on the horizon, as we continue to invest in NFC with our partners,” said Peter Hazlehurst, director of product management for Google Wallet, in the blog post.

In Google’s list of wallet devices, the company lists 17 models of NFC-enabled Android phones and tablets, but counts some of them multiple times to reach the 29 figure–if they are available from more than one U.S. mobile carrier.

Most of the devices are available from Sprint, the only one of the big four U.S. operators to support Google Wallet. Other small telcos or mobile virtual network operators, including those owned by Sprint or using its network, such as Virgin Mobile USA, Boost Mobile and Zact mobile; as well as U.S. Cellular and MetroPCS, offer some Google Wallet phones. MetroPCS merged with T-Mobile earlier this year. One phone supporting Google Wallet, the Samsung Galaxy S III, is available from Sprint and four of the smaller telcos.

In addition, three of the Google Wallet devices are from Google itself, the Nexus 4 smartphone, made by LG Electronics; the Nexus 7 tablet, manufactured by Asus; and the Nexus 10 tablet, from Samsung.

Google notes on its list that only wallet devices sold in the U.S. and by the carriers indicated–except the Nexus phones or tablets–will work with the NFC features of the wallet.

For its NFC-enabled payments functionality, Google since August of 2012 has put an applet supporting MasterCard PayPass on the embedded secure element in the wallet phones, to which users can link credit and debit cards on Google servers, or “in the cloud.” NFC purchases, like funds transfers, also can be funded by money stored in the wallet, which Google calls a Wallet Balance.

Google had planned to introduce its own plastic payment card and make other significant changes to the wallet in a Google Wallet 2.0 version, but the company did not introduce the version.

Its latest wallet app is an updated version to its Google Wallet 1.6 software. It has made earlier updates to 1.6. The latest version is available on all devices supporting Android 2.3 or higher, noted Google.

Besides expanding the network-based money send features in the U.S. to email addresses outside of Gmail, Google said the new wallet app enables users to add physical loyalty cards to the app by scanning the bar codes or entering the card numbers of the cards. They can then earn points by having the code scanned on their device screens at the merchant checkout counter. Google also mentioned current or future loyalty partners Alaska Airlines, Avis Car Rental, BJ’s Restaurants, InterContinental Hotels Group, Marriott International and others.

Google also said users can save offers from Google Maps, Google Search, Google+ or Google Offers, and later in the week, they would be able to save offers from merchants and couponing sites, such as Valpak. The users would have to manually show the offers in the app to retail clerks for redemption.