Android Pay is expanding its support in the United States, while South Korean electronics giant Samsung is preparing to launch its mobile payment platform in India.
Android Pay, a mobile payment platform developed by Google, has announced that 31 new banks were added to the list of financial institutions supporting the service. The full list of the newly added banks is now available on the Android Pay support page.
The additions include the Alcoa Pittsburgh Federal Credit Union, America’s First FCU, First State Bank of Colorado, Bank of American Fork, Bank of Washington, Central National Bank, Bank of Washington, The Hometown Bank of Alabama, Town & Country Bank and Trust, and TTCU The Credit Union.
Android Pay now supports more than 600 major banks and credit unions in the United States. However, there are still many banks in the country that are not supported by the service. According to the United States Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), there were 6,799 banks across the United States as of 2014.
In the meantime, both Mastercard and Samsung are announcing the plans to expand their mobile payment services.
Samsung has finally enabled its users in India to sign up for early access to Samsung Pay. The service supports credit and debit cards for Visa and MasterCard from such banks as Axis, HDFC, SBI, ICICI and Standard Chartered. The company is also planning to add support for Citibank and American Express as well.
To take part in the early access program, customers will need Galaxy Note 5, Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 Edge, Galaxy S6 Edge+, Galaxy A7 (2016) or Galaxy A5 (2016) device. The company has not yet announced the launch date, so it is unknown when the platform goes live. All information about the access period will be sent via email to users who successfully registered for the program.
Samsung Pay users will also be able to connect their Paytm wallet to the platform and make QR payments without the need to have Paytm app on their devices.
At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the credit card company Mastercard announced that its Qkr platform will soon be launched in the US, Canada, Brazil, Ireland, Singapore and South Africa. The service is already available to users in the UK, Australia, Mexico and Colombia.
Mastercard has also partnered with retail software provider Oracle to make digital payment experience much easier by integrating its Qkr service in Oracle’s POS software. Initially, the collaboration will focus on restaurants, hotels and retail stores. The company has also unveiled a new ‘Open Tab’ feature that is set to become available this summer. With the new functionality, users in a bar or a restaurant will be able to pay their bill directly from the table.
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