At
the MWC, Google’s product czar Sundar Pichai announced that the company
was working on its own mobile payments system like Apple Pay and the
recently announced Samsung Pay.
Google’s
Android Pay as it is called is a new product that will rely on NFC to
allow users to make payments at stores using their mobile phones. “There
will also be an ‘API layer’ that allows other companies to support
secure payments on Android in both physical stores and via apps,” says a
report on The Verge. Essentially Android Pay will also have an API
layer for other companies to develop apps or payments in their stores.
According
to a report on Engadget, Android Pay should be seen “as an OS-level
service that makes it easy for app makers or retailers to let you buy
things using your Android device.”
The
report on The Verge quotes Pichai as saying, “We are doing it in a way
in which anybody else can build a payments service on top of Android.”
While Pichai didn’t given details of Android Pay, it will could
“accommodate biometric sensors as well,” notes the report.
For
now Google Wallet, the service which makes payments possible on
Android’s Play Store, will continue and Pichai said that the service
will continue even after Android Pay gets launched. According to a
previous report, the company is expected to launch the Android Pay API
at the I/O in May.
Apple
launched the Apple Pay system with the iPhone 6 last year and now
Samsung has followed suit with its own Samsung Play. Recently research
firm Strategy Analytics had predict that payments made via Near Field
Communications (NFC)-enabled mobile handsets will account for $130
Billion in worldwide consumer retail spend by 2020. With Apple and
Samsung getting their own system in place. Google obviously doesn’t want
to be left behind.
Posted by : Gizmeon
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