Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to navigation
Sundar Pichai
Google’s Sundar Pichai confirms Android Pay at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Photograph: Lluis Gene/AFP/Getty Images
Google’s Sundar Pichai confirms Android Pay at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Photograph: Lluis Gene/AFP/Getty Images

Google launches Android Pay to take over where Google Wallet failed

This article is more than 9 years old

Service will work as a mobile payment system for third-party developers, allowing users to pay for goods and services using an Android smartphone

Google has announced a rival mobile payment service to Samsung Pay and Apple Pay called Android Pay. The new service will allow users to pay contactlessly for goods and services using their Android smartphone. Each transaction will generate a single-use “token”, which is sent to the receiving device to secure against fraud.

Android Pay will use near-field communication (NFC) initially, but will be able to take advantage of biometric devices such as fingerprint scanners at a later date. Credit card data will be stored locally so that payments can be conducted without a data connection on the smartphone.

“We are doing it in a way so that anybody else can build a payments service on top of Android,” said Google’s senior vice-president of product, Sundar Pichai, at a press event at Mobile World Congress. “In places like China and Africa, we hope that people will use Android Pay to build innovative services.”

The service is being pitched to developers to build directly into their apps. Users will be able to pay for goods in bricks-and-mortar stores, but Android Pay will not exist as a standalone app, like Apple Pay on an iPhone. Instead, it will be used by third-party apps to create payment products such as store- or payment provider-specific apps, acting as a payment source as well as a credit card replacement.

Google Wallet will continue to exist, but will integrate Android Pay as a payment source. Pichai also said that Google will look to work alongside Samsung Pay, but that the Korean company is working to different timescales. No timeframe for its launch was given, but more is expected from Google’s developer conference in June.

Despite being available on Android smartphones since 2011, Google Wallet has failed to spread beyond limited use in the US. Mobile phone operators have also tried to leverage their billing systems as a way to pay for goods and services using a smartphone.

It was Apple’s entry into the payments space last year that ignited a new race from technology companies to capture a slice of the potentially lucrative market.

Most viewed

Most viewed