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Will crucial partnerships help drive Android Pay’s ecosystem?
Android Pay has officially introduced at Google’s I/O conference in San Fransisco. While the “simple and secure” mobile payment solution has been in the pipeline for better over a year, Google unveiled some interesting details we could look forward to.
With rivals in the space like Apple, PayPal and Square, mobile payments is yet to take off in the US. Though Google hopes its key partnerships and open philosophy will help drive the industry forward.
Similar to Apple Pay, Android Pay relies on Near Communication Frequency (NFC) to make transactions. The customer simply swipes their Android smartphone at an in-store terminal that supports the tech.
Android Pay is said to work at over 700 000 store locations across the US, and in over 1 000 Android apps.
Read more: Google I/O 2015 live blog: watch the keynote live here
Pali Bhat, the director of product management, writes that partnerships within the ecosystem makes things more “interesting”, and that Google has thus partnered with everything from mobile carriers, payment networks, banks to retailers.
Developers also have an open platform that should help the ecosystem evolve.
Interestingly, Android Pay extends to in-app purchases. Bhat explains:
The days of entering your credit card and shipping address each time you make a purchase online will be a thing of the past. Just select Buy with Android Pay and leave the rest to us; checkout is as fast as a tap.
The company has therefor partnered with popular US payments processors including Braintree, CyberSource, First Data, Stripe and Vantiv.
Some of these retail partners include Best Buy, Coca Cola, Mac Donald’s, GameStop, Pepse, Subway, JetBlue Airways and many more. Partnered apps include Groupon, Etsy, Uber, Dominos, Eventbrite, Chipotle and more.
When Apple introduced Apple Pay last year, it signed up three of the biggest credit card companies in the US including Visa, MasterCard and American Express. Three days after, though the feature had over a million signups, critics believe that it’s failed to live up to expectations. Will Google be able to crack the code?
