Android Pay frustrates Apple Pay plans with Australian Banks

Apple Pay has been on the rise in the US, with one of the world’s most fortunate companies leading the way in mobile payments. In the US, though, Android Pay has been hard to adopt due to the fact that more Apple users tend to be mobile payment-oriented as opposed to their Android counterparts — who didn’t use Google Wallet when it was Google’s mobile payment method of choice. Well, it seems as though Android Pay is winning the war on mobile payments in one place, at least.

The latest report from Reuters says that Android Pay is winning Australian banks, who aren’t jumping on the Apple Pay bandwagon. Australian banks Westpac Banking Corp, Macquarie, and ANZ Banking Group have agreed to do business with Android Pay and will prepare their Android customers for the rollout of Google’s mobile payments service in 2016. Apple Pay launched last month in Australia, but the majority of banks are not willing to upgrade their technology to fit Apple’s specific technology requirements. There’s no word on Samsung Pay and Samsung’s intentions to bring it to Australia, but Samsung’s mobile payment method wouldn’t require banks to update their technology and would make use of traditional card readers via magnetic secure transmission (or MST).

Android Pay is Google’s answer to Apple Pay in mobile payments, allowing Android users to use their fingerprint or PIN code to authorize the removal of currency from their banking account(s). Google’s decision to bring native fingerprint authentication to Android with Android Marshmallow shows that Google considers fingerprint authentication as essential in protecting the banking and financial information of customers who want to “get with the times” while having immediate deductions from their financial accounts.

Android Pay can also be seen as Google’s attempt to remake its own Google Wallet, though Google says that Android Pay isn’t consuming Google Wallet but complementing it. Android Pay relies on near-field communication or NFC, which requires proximity between devices and card readers to process payments. Apple Pay relies on NFC as well, while Samsung Pay will allow traditional card readers to purchase payments (in other words, banks wouldn’t need to update their readers to handle NFC).

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