Google officially announced Android Pay this week, which means that many users are geared up to start making more mobile payments with their smartphones than with the cards in their wallets. Google states that more than one million merchants are supported, although not all of them may actually have support for the service live just yet. With Android Pay now officially launched though and the app having started rolling out to users as of yesterday, the new age of mobile payments is beginning with Apple Pay already available and Samsung Pay coming this month.
There are some limitations to Android Pay at the moment, and that’s mainly the supported banking institutions, and the exact stores and merchants which have support already live. Right now there are only some banking institutions that work with Android Pay, mainly the biggest banks. This will for some time lock out those who bank with smaller companies, like smaller local banks or credit unions, until Google works with them to get their credit and debit cards supported. The only workaround for this at the moment is if you already had the card you want to use with Android Pay stored inside of your Google Wallet app prior to all these changes. In this particular scenario Android Pay will allow you to use the card from an unsupported bank by importing it to the new app. It isn’t clear how long this will remain though. The other issue is finding retail stores and merchants which have live support. Now, the service will basically work anywhere you see the tap and pay or Android Pay logos, the trouble right now is finding which places those are. Google has listed some on the web page for Android Pay, but it could still be some time before you can likely use Android Pay generally anywhere you shop. The question is, will be using Android Pay whenever you get the chance, or will you be sticking to paying for things the old fashioned way?
[socialpoll id=”[socialpoll id=”2294337″]