Google has announced that it is working on a new mobile payment system ‘Android Pay’ which will help the developers and companies to build different secure payment methods. Speaking in the Mobile World Congress, Google’s Product chief, Sundar Pichai said that Android Pay will not be a device or an ecosystem, it will be an API layer using which, companies and developers across the globe can get benefits.
The battle of payment systems is heating up. After Apple Pay, a number of tech giants have landed the payments domain.
Android Pay will open many domains for the payment industry but with a lot of security threats. Android has been a victim of a plethora of hack attacks because of its open source nature. Apple, on the other hand crafts its products and services in an ecosystem which makes it much secure as compared to other platforms.
Pichai said that Google Wallet will continue to be a separate service. It will not be merged with Android Pay. He said that Android Pay will start from NFC and the company will extend this service to hardware, biometric systems in the future. He dodged the question about the competition of Google and Samsung as Samsung has given NFC payment option in its recently launched Samsung Galaxy S6. Google’s executive said that Samsung and Google continue to work together or a number of projects.
Apple Pay still has the edge in the payments race. Although Google has been working in the payments domain since 2011, it was a bit late as compared to Apple. Apple Pay has already started rolling out in the market and there are many stores accepting the service as a valid payment method.