Android Pay debuts with Apple Pay in sight
The Android Pay platform is built into the core Android operating system and is designed to allow developers to integrate mobile payment functionality into their apps. For end users, the experience of using Android Pay will be similar to that of other mobile payment systems, such as Apple Pay, where near-field communication (NFC) is used to securely transmit payment data to a nearby point-of-sale contactless pay terminal or reader.
Also like Apple Pay, Android Pay will use tokenization for additional data security, where card information is first encrypted before being shared with a merchant. Android Pay will also support biometric authentication tools.
The platform has been designed to work with any payment processor, and Google announced that it is partnering with several top payments processors, including Braintree (a subsidiary of PayPal), CyberSource, First Data, Stripe and Vantiv to make integration easier. The company also said that it is partnering with over 700,000 stores, including Best Buy, Gamestop, Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, Whole Foods and McDonald’s, as well as all major credit card providers.
Android Pay will work with any Android phone equipped with an NFC chip and KitKat (or later) operating system. It will be part of the Android M release scheduled for later this year and will be able to use that OS’s built-in fingerprint scanning support.