(19 May 2016 – United Kingdom) Google announced the British roll-out of its wireless payments service Android Pay earlier this week.
Banks supporting the launch of Android Pay include Bank of Scotland, First Direct, Halifax, HSBC, Lloyds Bank, M&S Bank, MBNA, and Nationwide Building Society.
Conspicuously missing from the list of banks on board with the technology is Barclays, who also lagged in launching on competing platform, Apple Pay by around a year.
The technology works in a similar manner to contactless payment methods such as contactless debit and credit cards, where users will be able to tap their Android smartphones at NFC terminals to complete a transaction.
However, unlike contactless payment cards, there’s no upper limit on the size of purchases customers can make with Android Pay.
The implementation should be smooth for merchants, who will not need to add additional point-of-sale technology, as long as it has an already ubiquitous NFC payment terminal.
Google is almost a year behind Apple in launching their mobile payment service: Apple Pay, available on iPhones, launched in the UK in July 2015.