Android Pay, the new mobile payments technology owned by Google, has today been launched in the USA.
Android has begun the rollout of its new service, allowing users to make payments with their compatible Android phones in stores, which will continue for the next few days.
Like most mobile payments, Android Pay uses near field communication (NFC) technology, available in Android devices running KitKat 4.4+ software. It can be used with any network carrier and in any store with mobile payment compatible terminals, known as “Tap and Pay”.
Users of the new service will be able to register both credit and debit cards from American Express, Discover, MasterCard and Visa.
Similarly to the existing Apple Pay technology launched in the US in October 2014 and recently in the UK in July this year, Android Pay uses industry standard tokenisation security which transmits a one-time use code instead of the actual debit or credit card number.
Currently, users of the Android Pay service will only be able to use their devices for in-store payments but, Android says, users will be able to make in-app payments later this year.
Whilst Apple has dominated the news with the launch of its own Apple pay mobile payments technology last year, the launch of the Android Pay service is expected to make a big impact to the industry due to its massive share of the mobile phone industry, reportedly 83% as at June 2015 (the iPhone has a 14% share).
