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by drampelt 1429 days ago
I have an Android phone and have every single one of my credit and debit cards from 7 different banks in Google Pay. Don't need to use the bank app for any of them.

EDIT: to be clear, currently on Android any app can handle NFC payments, not just Google Pay. Banks could easily force people to user their apps, but that's not happening.
2 comments
smileybarry 1428 days ago
Counterpoint: here in Israel we had (only) the bank apps on Android for 2+ years, and they were a combination of "okay" and "awful". My bank's app required to unlock your phone (with biometric auth), an app-specific pin code, and had a 30-second window. It then didn't work 30% of the time and required turning NFC off and on again to work. It took them over a year to change to "just unlock your phone".

Then Apple Pay launched here, contactless adoption on iOS became triple of Android's (despite Android having more than double the phones), and a few months later Google Pay launched in response with their better implementation. I'm guessing it was a combined "in response to Apple" from Google and "maybe this will increase adoption" from banks.

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kccqzy 1429 days ago
A possible consequence of the current legislation is that instead of a system-wide service where Apple Pay or Google Pay can work with different banks, each bank now demands to handle NFC payments within its own app. You may find that Google Pay is no longer supported by banks.
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drampelt 1429 days ago
Sorry if it wasn't clear, that was actually my point - on Android even though banks have the ability to handle NFC payments within their own apps, the vast majority still support Google Pay and don't force you to use their app.
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Aaargh20318 1428 days ago
Most banks I know of only started supporting Google Pay after they deployed Apple Pay. Basically, Apple Pay showed consumers how good the UX can be which more or less forced the banks to Google Pay support so they can also have a good UX on Android. Without Apple forcing the use of Apple Pay I doubt it would ever have taken off.

NFC payments were possible through the banking apps on Android for years before Apple Pay launched in my country. Note that contactless payment had also been around here for years and pretty much all payment terminals supported it. Technically, everything was in place for it to be adopted, yet no one used it. Only after introduction of Apple Pay did it take off. Google Pay support followed the success of Apple Pay.

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