Google to unleash Android Pay on UK shoppers within 'months'

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Google’s smartphone payment system, Android Pay, is coming to the UK “in the next few months".

The payment service, released in September 2015, will début with a host of the UK’s retailers, banks and financial services institutions on board, Google said on Wednesday.

Android Pay is already available in the US, with a claimed 1.5 million “new registrations” each month, with rollout also scheduled for Australia.

Those putting their name to Android Pay in the UK include Lloyds Bank, Nationwide, M&S Bank and Halifax, Boots, BP, Greggs, Waitrose, Transport for London, KFC and Zara.

Payment platform and processors accepting Android Pay will include Braintree, WorldPay and CyberSource.

Also taking payment will be Deliveroo, whose jacketed bike riders can be found increasingly loitering outside London’s food joints to deliver orders to the mouths of millennial office types.

Mobile, smartphone based payments have become a huge opportunity for all concerned – phone makers, payment providers, businesses and banks.

Gartner has claimed 50 per cent of smartphone and users of wearable tech in North America, Japan and Western Europe will use their device to make mobile payments in 2018.

Apple Pay is considered the leading mobile payment system, with 12 million consumers since availability in early 2015. Junior slide rule jockeys and spreadsheet riders will inevitably predict that Android Pay will surpass Apple Pay thanks to Android’s dominant market share over iOS devices.

While feasible, it will be interesting to see to what extent Apple can parlay its device market share and what competition others, such as PayPal and Pingit, can offer. ®