Android Pay in Canada goes live today with eight banks, as Google’s Canada Blog has just announced this morning that it has begun to roll out the service to users to bring mobile payments to Canada and make paying for goods and services that much easier for consumers. Participating banks that are so far supported with the start of the rollout include BMO Bank of Montreal, CIBC, Scotiabank, Desjardins, Banque Nationale, ATB Financial, Canadian Tire Financial Services, and President’s Choice Financial, with support coming this Summer for Tangerine as an additional bank, and support for American Express as an additional supported card.
Currently the supported card types from any of these banks includes Interac, MasterCard, and Visa, as well as prepaid cards from Scotiabank and Desjardins. While today is the start of the rollout for Android Pay in the region, Google does note that the rollout will continue over the coming days, which means it may not work in all supported retail locations today or for some consumers. That said, those with a supported bank at this time will be able to give things a go simply by trying the service out at a retailer which accepts contactless payments.
Google plans to roll out support for additional banks and retailers in Canada throughout the year and in the months ahead, so while the list for supported banks and retailers may not be large just yet, support will expand and given Google’s track record for rapidly expanding support for the mobile payment system in the U.S. it’s highly likely the same could happen for Canada. Some of the already supported retailers will be Tim Hortons, Sears, Freedom Mobile, Loblaws and more, and there are even a number of applications which will support it with the start of this launch like Uber, Hotel Tonight, Ritual, lululemon and others. As with Android Pay in other regions where it;s already up and running, consumers will need a device that has NFC and is running on at least Android 4.4 KitKat to make the service work. Android Pay in Canada has been a long time coming for many consumers, s now that it’s here users will finally be able to checkout faster and easier.
