Google Launches Android Pay On Google Play
by Brandon Chester on September 18, 2015 7:50 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
- Android Pay
Today Google officially began the roll out of Android Pay by releasing the Android Pay application on the Google Play Store. Android Pay was announced earlier this year at Google I/O and is Google's new NFC based payment service for Android smartphones. It's effectively a successor to Google Wallet, although Google Wallet still exists as a service for sending P2P payments. The rollout of the new application actually began last week as an update for Google Wallet users, but today the application should be available to all users for direct download.
Android Pay will work on any smartphone running Android 4.4 KitKat or newer so long as the phone has NFC hardware. At launch the service will only be available in the United States, and will support a variety of credit and debit cards from various US banks and credit unions. There will also be support for gift cards and loyalty cards from retailers.
Google's Android Pay website details a number of stores that support Android Pay, but since the service uses NFC it will work at any store that has tap to pay support. It will also work in Android applications that have partnered with Google to support Android Pay payments, and you can view a list of those applications along with a list of supported banks and credit unions on the Android Pay site.
Source Google Play via Engadget
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R3MF - Saturday, September 19, 2015 - link
any chance you could use Play Store credit for Android Pay purchases?Youtube Gaming - Saturday, September 19, 2015 - link
Its great Google has launched Android pay on Google play, as so many people will use it: http:androidpay.weebly.comalin - Sunday, September 20, 2015 - link
I for one dont understand why people are getting so workout about this pay thing.What is wrong with chip+pin? As long as you have to get your phone out to pay, in the same manner you can get your card out of the pocket.
I can understand the option to pay/help a friend that is miles away and needs some money (like for car petrol), but paying at stores with your phone? The word "snob" describes it the best.
For me is just a "thing" to brag about. And the comercials suport and show exactly that.
solipsism - Monday, September 21, 2015 - link
Why does there have to be anything wrong with C+P for there to be another option? Still, Apple Pay, Android Pay, and all the others that will follow, do offer considerable security and convenience over C+P.Regarding security, for example, if your card is lost or stolen you have to have a new card issued. With these mobile *Pay systems your card number is never used. Your financial institution generates, issues, and stores a virtual card number on their system that is tied to your physical card number and count. That means your physical card number is never at risk. If your watch is lost or stolen your physical card number remains safe. If your phone is lost or stolen your physical card number remains safe. If your tablet is lost or stolen your physical card number remains safe. Each mobile device gets its own virtual card number that is represented on your account by your financial institution. You can also remotely remove these representational card numbers per device from your device, or, more importantly, from your financial institutions in one single event, which means even if someone can gain access to your OS and access the secure element associated with the NFC chip it simply won't work once those virtual account numbers are wiped. Again, this is per device so there is no need to figure out all the cards that were stolen, find the phone numbers of the financial institutions, and then call each one to have them canceled and new ones sent to you.
Regarding convenience, for example, I don't tend to carry my wallet in my hand all the time, but I do tend to have my phone in my hand my smartwatch on my wrist. If I'm in a line, I am very likely to be looking at my phone. This makes it more convenient to use a mobile *Pay system because its inarguably faster and requires less juggling of objects that I'm either playing "musical pockets" with to get out my wallet or holding both in my hand. Of course, we're only talking a couple seconds at most, for something we all have muscle memory for, but it is clearly less time, especially when you consider your additional example of having to input a PIN on top of sliding your card into a reader. Additionally, I don't want to touch a PIN-pad if I don't have to… but I digress. The real convenience is not having to carry your wallet as much once this reaches a critical point of acceptance. Right now, there are places I go to where I won't bring my wallet (or even my phone) to pay knowing that they accept NFC-based payments. If you like to go for a jog or biking, and then want to stop to get some food afterwards, it's convenient not to carry extra stuff with you.
Within 2-3 years I expect the comment will move from, "Hey! They accept *Pay!." to "Hey! What do you mean you don't accept *Pay?," at which point the real saving on fraud by your financial institutions will drop significantly as we won't have to carry all of our cards with us everywhere we go.
For those worried about the NFC system not working, that's not different than any when CC's started taking off and people had to carry cash because they didn't take cards at all, or many years later when they moved from the manual handwritten systems with carbon paper to the systems that required a phone call to a banking service. Many still carry cash, just in case, but this fear continually drops off with each new generation. I expect any fears with *Pay will fall away, too, as this convenient and secure NFC-based payments continue to take hold.
lambedross - Thursday, March 29, 2018 - link
You can check here Google Launches Android Pay On Google Play https://playstore.zone/