GOOGLE’S ANDROID PAY is set to hit the UK late, bringing a the contactless and mobile payments service to Britain ready to do battle with Apple Pay.
Some loose-lipped sources from the industry sources revealed the rumoured launch date, according to a report in The Telegraph, but Google has yet to confirm any details.
Apple already has the lead on Android Pay in the UK, Having launched in Blighty way back in July. But Android Pay found some success in with its US launch back in September, so is poised to rollout the service in the UK.
Mimicking Apple Pay, Android Pay works by enabling people who hate rifling through their wallets to pay for purchases using a smartphone loaded with Visa or MasterCard details at an NFC-enabled contactless terminal.
But things are about to get crowded in the mobile payments arena. Samsung is due to launch the Samsung Pay contactless payments service in the UK, although the company hasn’t divulged an official launch date. Already live in Korean and the US, Samsung Pay offers contactless payment through NFC and Magnetic Secure Transmission, a technology gained through the acquisition of LoopPay.
Unlike Apple Pay and Android Pay, this means that Samsung Pay will work with older payment terminals without NFC functionality, potentially giving it much more reach with UK retailers.
But Apple has enjoyed a pretty successful rollout of Apple Pay probably due to offering the market a limited selection of smartphones all running the same or very similar versions of iOS. While Google has a bigger challenge owing to the complicated and fragmented mass of handsets running Android with multiple and customised versions of the operating system.
With ever more retailers accepting contactless and mobile payments, we’re likely to see increasing numbers of people waving their smartphones over terminals to pay for their fancy coffees and artisan breads
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