At Google I/O 2015, the company’s annual developers’ conference, Android Pay became official. It’s Android’s answer to Apple’s own payment platform, the Apple Pay.

With Android Pay, you can pay in stores just by unlocking your Android phone and then tapping it on the store’s contact-less terminal. You will then receive a notification about the payment and a receipt. Apps that sell goods can also use this as a payment option.

Android Pay logo
Android Pay logo

Android Pay works with phones running on Android 4.4 Kitkat and up. Of course, you need to setup apple pay to use your credit or debit card. It also requires NFC for contact-less payment.

Don’t worry though, these details won’t be shared by Android Pay. It will create a virtual account number to represent your actual banking details when processing a payment.

Google says they have implemented every security aspect for Android Pay. In case your phone with Android Pay enabled gets lost, you may wipe it using the Android Device Manager.

Android Pay in action

In the above photo, the left smartphone shows the confirmation message after buying a bottle of Coca-Cola in a vending machine using Android Pay. Notice that the user’s MyCoke Rewards has been updated too!

On the right is an app that uses Android Pay for payments. Other apps that will employ this includes Uber, livingsocial, Groupon and newegg.

Meanwhile, some companies that will accept Android Pay in their stores includes McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Aeropostale, jetBlue and petco. Others will follow suit.

Sources:
Google I/O 2015
Official Android Blog