Android Pay to launch for Canada’s smartphone users
Canadian Android users have a new way to pay for items both in stores and online with their smartphones, so long as they are comfortable with using the technology to do it.
Announced Wednesday, Android Pay — Google’s digital wallet offering designed for its Android operating system — can be used with eligible Canadian Visa and Mastercard credit and debit cards, as well as Interac debit cards from supported financial institutions.
Google said Android Pay will begin rolling out over the “next several days” for Visa and Mastercard credit cards from Bank of Montreal, CIBC, Banque Nationale, Scotiabank, Desjardins, President’s Choice Financial, ATB Financial and Canadian Tire Financial Services on devices running Android KitKat 4.4 or higher. The company added that support for Interacbranded debit cards will begin rolling out on Monday, with support for American Express cards and Tangerine coming later this summer.
“Canada is one of the most advanced countries in terms of mobile payment readiness across the world. That meant Canada was one of those places high on our list of where we wanted to make Android Pay available first,” said Pali Bhat, Google’s vice-president of payment product, in an interview.
Android Pay launched September 2015 in the United States and has since rolled out to 11 other countries such as New Zealand, U.K., Australia, Japan and Hong Kong. Similar to its competitor Apple Pay, the technology uses a tokenized system to create a secure transaction for payments when an Android phone is tapped on a Near Field Communication supported terminal (the same consumers tap a physical card on). When a credit or debit card number is first entered into Android Pay, Google will create a new one-time account number specific for that card that will be used going forward so merchants won’t have access to the original information. All the merchant sees, according to Google, is the total price and that it’s approved by the financial institution.
“We never share your card number directly with the store,” said Bhat. “So even if there is some kind of breach of the information along the path of the transaction, your card number is safe because we never pass it along directly.”