MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA- Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) Google has announced its one-touch paying system called Android Pay, as an answer to Apple’s counterpart, the Apple Pay, that was released during WWDC 2015.
Availability
The search giant stated that Android Pay will be available in more than one million locations across the States, starting yesterday.
The stores that currently support this new service are Aeropostale Inc., Macy’s Inc, GameStop Corp and Staples Inc, with more locations and companies to follow in the upcoming days.
A slew of credit and debit cards will be supported by AndroidPay, including American Express Co, Discover Financial Services, MasterCard Inc and Visa Inc and cards issued by banks such as Bank of America and U.S. Bank.
Citigroup Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co will be joining the list in the next couple of days as well.
What is Android Pay? How do I download it?
Android Pay is an integration of Google Wallet, hence if you have already been using the latter then all you have to do is download the update from the Play Store.
In case you are not familiar, Wallet is Google’s primary payment service that allows you to store debit and credit card information as well as redeem sales promotions via your mobile phone. You can download it for free from the Play Store.
So fundamentally, Android Pay allows you to make use of the info you have stored to Google Wallet, and be able to pay at retail stores by using your smartphone instead of cash or your actual credit card.
In a nutshell, as the name suggests, your Android smartphone is replacing your old-school wallet.
Is my phone/tablet compatible with Android Pay?
According to Google, the only requirements for the Android Pay service is your device to have NFC (Near Field Connectivity) and run on Android 4.4 KitKat or higher.
Is it safe?
Google has managed to pull a quite brilliant security tweak to make Android Pay a secure service, as during every transaction a one-time-token will be generated thus not revealing the credit card’s number. The security industry refers to the particular technique as “tokenization”.
Starting this week, AT&T Inc., T-Mobile US and Verizon Communications will be having Android Pay pre-installed in every NFC-enabled smartphone or tablet.
Circulation dates regarding the rest of the world are yet to be unveiled.
Leave a Reply