Android Pay, Google owned mobile payment and digital wallet service was initially released in Google I/O 2015. After Android Pay was first launched in the US, it has gradually expanded to several other countries. Android Pay has now arrived in Canada with support for a number of local retail stores. Some major players include McDonald’s, Tim Hortons, Sears Canada, Indigo, Loblaws and Petro-Canada with wireless carriers like Telus, Freedom Mobile and Rogers. According to Google, eighty percent of the stores in Canada already accept this form of payment.
Android Pay is compatible with both MasterCard and Visa and will be initially available for the customers of following banks: BMO, CIBC, Banque Nationale, Scotiabank, Desjardins, President’s Choice Financial, ATB Financial and Canadian Tire Financial Services. Google says that American Express and Tangerine will also be added later this summer. However, two major banks, namely TD and Royal Bank are not among the supported financial institutions.
Spencer Spinnell, Google’s director of emerging platforms, hopes to add more financial institutions to the platform in near future.
Android Pay is really simple to use, you just need to wake up your device and place it near a contactless terminal, and the transaction is processed. This is to note that any Android smartphone with an NFC chip built-in and running Android 4.4 KitKat or higher version of the operating system is eligible to work with the payment platform.
