Google’s mobile payment platform Android Pay and global digital payments major PayPal have today announced their collaboration that’ll further simplify the checkout process at brick-and-mortar stores, as well as online purchases on your smartphone. This means you’ll be able to use your PayPal wallet to complete payments.
With this integration, you will soon be able to transact using your PayPal wallet in the same way you’d utilize credit/debit or gift cards stored inside the Android Pay app. But, this will require you to link your PayPal account to the Android Pay service. This means you’ll be able to complete transactions wherever Android Pay is accepted — in-store, in-app and online — via your digital wallet balance.
Speaking about the integration in an official blog post, Pali Bhat, Global head of payment products at Google said,
Millions of people already use their PayPal account to make online purchases, receive payments and send money to friends and family. Soon they can start using the same PayPal account to tap and pay with their phones in stores and speed through checkout in Android apps.
This is no surprise because PayPal had recently confirmed that it was planning to debut NFC transaction support to its application in the coming months. But, seeing the massive user base of Android Pay, it is looking to entice individuals to its own, as well as Google’s mobile wallet service with this integration. Both of them are banking on each other to expand their reach to newer markets and make cashless transactions even more seamless. They’ll now bank upon their trust among users to eliminate friction from competitors like Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and others.
PayPal already has a long-standing partnership with Google, thanks to the addition of its wallet as a payment method within Google Play nearly three years ago. It is extending the same with its integration with Android Pay and will initially enable users to complete transactions using their PayPal balance. Over the coming months, it will unlock the ability to use cards which have been stored with PayPal via its recent tokenization partnership with major card networks like Visa, Mastercard, Discover, Citi, FIS, and others.
On the extension of their partnership, Bill Ready, Executive VP and Chief Operating Officer, PayPal said,
We’re excited for this next phase of our relationship. With our combined reach and leadership in technology and mobile commerce, we can bring more choice and optionality to our joint customers.
The integration is currently not live within the Android Pay application, but Google is planning to roll it out to eligible users over the next few weeks. It is supported on versions of Android OS 4.4 and higher, including KitKat, Lollipop, Marshmallow and Nougat. As for those interested in PayPal’s official figures, it processed $102 billion in mobile payment volume and two billion mobile payment transactions in the last year alone.
This development comes on the heels of Android Pay making its way into the official mobile apps of some of the prominent banks in the United States. Android Pay has recently also been aggressively expanding its reach to newer international banks to the service. It has signed up a total of over 150 additional banks this year already and that number is only expected to increase over the coming days.
