No cash? No problem. Android Pay will soon be arriving in the UK, so you no longer need to take your wallet every time you leave the house, as David Crookes explains
What is Android Pay?
Android Pay (www.androidpay.com) is a mobile wallet that lets you store credit and debit cards on your phone to pay for products and services on the high street and online. Due to arrive “in the next few months”, it’s set to rival Apple Pay, which launched in the UK last year, and marks another step towards a cashless society.
Is it easy to set up?
Yes. Your phone should show the Android Pay app on the home screen but if you can’t find it, you can download it from Google Play (bit.ly/pay394). When you open the app, you can add your card to the Android Pay system, either by taking an image using your phone’s camera or by manually entering the details.
How does it work?
When you pay for items at the till, you usually have the choice of using notes and coins or a credit or debit card. With Android Pay, you have the additional option of unlocking your phone and holding it close to a payment terminal. You don’t need to enter a PIN or even launch an app – once the reader recognises your phone, the agreed sum is taken and you can walk away with your goods.
Will it work on any phone?
The service requires an Android device containing a Near Field Communication (NFC) chip. It must also be running 4.4 KitKat or above. This accounts for close to three-quarters of all the phones being used right now, so chances are it will work on your handset. If not, you’ll have to upgrade your phone.
What cards and banks can I use?
It’s likely that all the major UK banks will jump on board as they have with Apple Pay – after all, in the US where Android Pay rolled out last September, most of the top providers have become involved. Here in the UK, Apple Pay works with HSBC, Lloyds, NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, M&S and many more.
What about Barclays?
Oh yes, Barclays: it didn’t roll out Apple Pay last year and it’s almost certain it won’t be involved with Android Pay either – at least initially. In the meantime, it has its own contactless-payment service called bPay, which works in much the same way.
Is there a limit to how much I can spend?
The upper limit set by the UK Cards Association for contactless payments currently stands at £30, which we expect to rise in due course. Contactless-card payments accounted for more than £2.5bn worth of transactions in the first half of 2015 and prompted the payment limit to be upped from £20 last September.
What if I want a refund?
You can get one. When you’re returning an item, the cashier will ask you to tap your mobile phone on the reader and the money will be refunded to your bank or credit-card account.
Can I use loyalty cards with Android Pay?
As it happens, yes you can. Loyalty, reward and membership cards can be stored in Android Pay, each displaying a barcode that the cashier can scan.
Where can I use Android Pay?
If Apple Pay is anything to go by, then the number of merchants is set to grow very wide and you should start to see Android Pay stickers appearing in shop windows. One place almost certain to accept it is the healthy high-street food chain Tossed (tosseduk.com) which removed manned tills at two London branches in March in favour of cashless self-service kiosks that only accept cards and mobile payments.
But you’re not restricted to the high street. Some music festivals plan to accept mobile payments this year and Android Pay can also be used to make in-app purchases. In this respect, it’s going to be a major rival to PayPal.
It all sounds too easy. Is it secure?
Nothing is 100% secure and foolproof but Android Pay appears to be as near as you’ll get. The key is the NFC technology, which works at the closest of ranges – your handset has to be virtually touching the reader for the two to communicate. This pretty much eliminates the risk of data leaks and, because NFC doesn’t work over Wi-Fi, it makes payments difficult to intercept.
But this is only half the story: your credit and debit card details are not stored on your device and neither are they shared with the retailer. A virtual account number is used to represent the actual information and it is that, together with a merchant’s unique identifier, which is sent in encrypted form to the card provider for verification.
What happens if I lose my phone?
Android Pay requires you to have a password on your handset, so a thief or stranger would need to get past that first. Secondly, even if someone does manage to unlock your phone, your card details aren’t stored so there is no risk that anyone opening the Android Pay app will discover any numbers.
If this doesn’t allay your fears, there are two options open to you: you can call your bank and cancel the cards in your Android Pay wallet and you can access the Android Device Manager (bit.ly/lost394). This latter service finds your handset and allows you to remotely lock and erase it. The phone will need to be connected to Wi-Fi or a mobile data connection with an active SIM card in order for this to work but, if you act quickly enough, it should give you additional peace of mind.
Would I know if someone was using it?
It is theoretically possible that someone could get hold of your phone, know the passcode to unlock it and make a payment themselves, but if email notifications are turned on in the Android Pay settings, you will receive a message whenever a transaction has taken place so you’ll instantly spot anything suspicious. The most secure way to lock your phone is to use the fingerprint option if your handset has it (this requires Marshmallow).
Can I withdraw cash using Android Pay?
It’s possible: contactless cash machines are already available in Canada and Spain, and moves are afoot to allow Android Pay to be used with ATMs in the US. It’s likely that in the next year or two we’ll be able to get old-fashioned cash out of a machine using our mobiles. But the question is: will we still need to?
SAMSUNG MAKES ANDROID PAY
Although Apple Pay beat Android Pay to the UK market, its biggest threat may come from a manufacturer that makes many of the most popular Android phones. Samsung Pay (www.samsung.com/pay) is currently only available in South Korea and the USA but its likely to hit the UK at some point this year, tempting anyone possessing one of the Galaxy S6 and S7 range of phones or a Galaxy Note 5.
Higher-end Samsung phones have built-in Secure Element chips which produce one-time virtual account numbers and they can also be used in situations where there is no NFC reader. The company also has a system called Magnetic Secure Transmission that allows its handsets to be used like a normal credit card on any cardreading terminal, vastly increasing the number of retailers that can accept it.