The mobile payment platform will become available in Canada by the end of the month, following the launch of the service in Russia this week.
Last week, Google unveiled plans to roll out Android Pay in new countries, including Russia, Canada, Brazil, Spain and Taiwan. Earlier this week, the payment service was launched in Russia.
As MobileSyrup reports, the company is going to launch the platform in Canada on May 31. It is currently unknown which banks exactly will partner with Android Pay, as Google didn’t provide additional details regarding the expansion. However, according to MobileSyrup, which received internal documents on the launch, Android Pay will support main credit and debit cards in Canada. Besides, the service can be used “anywhere contactless is accepted,” the documents say.
The users of the system in Canada will be able to pay with Android Pay on any Android 4.4+ device that supports NFC payments. Canadians will likely be able to use Android Pay at major global franchises, including BP, Uber, Burger King, H&M, Starbucks, as all these vendors are supported by the platform in Russia.
It looks like Android Pay will have a better initial launch in Canada than its main rival Apple Pay, which was available only for American Express cardholders at first.
Overall, there have been a number of announcement made this month by the leading mobile payment providers. Apple announced earlier this week that its customers in the UK can use the platform to make purchases of any value.
Earlier, users were restricted to transactions of £30 at most merchants in the country. The new payment feature enabled users in the UK to make purchases without carrying their wallets. Apple Pay was first introduced in the country two years ago.
Meantime, South Korean mobile payments provider, Samsung Pay, has been recently launched in the UK to allow users of its smartphones to acquire goods and services by holding their devices up to a contactless card reader. To ensure an advanced security, the system features a fingerprint scanner and an iris scanner that let users to verify a transaction.
According to Samsung, the company will focus on NFC technology and is planning to bring Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) in the near future. The service is already available in the US, South Korea, China, Russia, Sweden, Brazil, Malaysia, the UAE, Spain, and Thailand.
A few days ago, China’s Alipay unveiled plans to expand into the US market. The company has already conducted two successful trials with retailers in New York and California. Chinese tourists coming to the US will be able to use their smartphones to pay at more than 4 million local retailers, while Apple Pay is accepted at nearly 4.5 million merchants.
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