Category: Android Pay

More news today regarding Android Pay.  In addition to adding banks here in the US, Google and PayPal have announced a new collaboration effort which will bring PayPal to Android Pay as a payment option.  The new effort was announced today and when it rolls out to users in the coming weeks, you will now have the option to link your account to Android Pay as a payment option when you use the service at a retailer.

The announcement came from PayPal this morning and is a big win for people (like me) who use both services to pay for things both online and in retail locations.

Coming soon, consumers in the U.S. will be able to use PayPal in Android Pay at retailers from Walgreens to Dunkin’ Donuts. This partnership will enable our customers to pay across even more contexts, and will extend PayPal’s mobile leadership and reach as consumers become more comfortable shopping and buying on their mobile devices.

The new service isn’t available just yet.  According to the post from Google, you can expect it to come to both the PayPal and the Android pay app via updates in the coming weeks.

Building on the addition of over a dozen new banks earlier this month, Android Pay has added support for five more banks here in the United States.  The update brings the total 18 new banks & financial institutions adding support for the tap-to-pay service in April alone and adds to the over 150 new banks added in 2017.  As with the update earlier this month, this round of supporting banks are mostly credit unions and smaller institutions.  They include:

• Barksdale Federal Credit Union
• Florence Savings Bank
• J.S.C. Federal Credit Union
• O Bee Credit Union
• Security State Bank of Hibbing

If you are a customer or member of one of these credit unions or banks, you can now add your bank-backed credit and debit cards to Android Pay to use them where it is accepted.

The growth of Android Pay continues at a torrid pace in 2017.  This weekend, another 13 banks were added to the service which pushes the total number of new banks added this year alone to over 100.  If you remember, 51 new financial institutions were added last month and given the heavy push that Google is making to get Android Pay used more and out there, the addition of so many banks big and small will help drive its adoption.

As with the additional banks last month, this month’s additions are generally smaller financial institutions.  Here is the rundown for this month’s additions:

• Bank of Stockton
• Boundary Waters Bank
• Citizens Bank of the South
• Country Bank for Savings
• Countryside Bank
• First Green Bank
• First State Bank of the Florida Keys
• Greenfield Cooperative Bank
• Infirmary Federal Credit Union
• Indiana University Credit Union
• Maquoketa State Bank
• McFarland State Bank
• The Conway National Bank

If you use one of these financial institutions, you should now be able to add your bank-backed credit or debit card to Android Pay.

The continued advancement of Android Pay support in Europe took another step today, adding support for Belgium.  Belgians become the 10th country to have the tap-to-pay service available, with it being a pay option in some 85,000 retail locations throughout the country.  It is also backed by key banks within the country with support for MasterCard and Visa.

As readers probably know by now, using Android Pay requires that you have a phone running Android KitKat or later and have a phone with NFC support.  Once you arrive at a retailer who accepts the service, just tap your phone to the pay terminal to complete your transaction.

Android Wear 2.0 is expected to be released today but it appears to Google is already paving the way for it with other apps.  Android Pay was updated late yesterday and with it comes support for Wear 2.0.  The support for it is not explicitly called out in the release notes for the update, something that Google is notoriously bad about updating on their apps.  Rather, it is in the screenshots that are associated with the update in the Play Store.

In those screenshots, you will see round Android Wear captures of a transaction with a Bank of America card along with another screenshot of a history of transactions.

Google has announced that Android Pay will be integrating with two popular payment systems, MasterCard’s Masterpass and Visa’s Visa Checkout, in early 2017.  The integration will bring more opportunities for consumers to use the Pay app and selecting which backend payment option that want the funds to be drawn from for the transaction while shopping online.

Android Pay users will soon be able to pay on hundreds of thousands of new sites where Visa Checkout or Masterpass are accepted using their preferred device authentication method – like fingerprint recognition. No longer will users have to remember multiple usernames and passwords in order to checkout, saving them time and hassle.

When the app is updated in early 2017, you will be able to configure it to be your single app for payments online.