Joining Apple Pay and Samsung Pay is Android Pay. From today, Android Pay NFC payment system will be available as another option for mobile payment.
To use this feature, you would need to own a compatible NFC capable smartphone. Download the Android Pay app and add your debit or credit card details into it.
The platform allows consumers who have Android devices running on the KitKat 4.4 (or newer) operating system and equipped with Near-Field Communication (NFC) chips to pay via their mobile phones at an extensive list of more than 280 brand merchants here, such as supermarket chains Cold Storage and Sheng Siong, electronics store Challenger, and various food and fashion outlets. Later this year, the platform will also be available on mobile apps such as Deliveroo, Grab, Peatix and Zalora, among others, saving users the trouble of entering payment details for each transaction.
Currently four major bank debit or credit cards are supported, They are DBS, POSB, OCBC, UOB and Standard Chartered. To pay, the user just needs to wake up his or her phone, there is no need to unlock it. Bring it near to the payment terminal with NFC turned on and tada , payment is done. Apple Pay and Samsung Pay require users to scan their fingerprints for activation. As a security measure, Android Pay users will receive a prompt to enter their passwords before every fourth transaction. Android Pay might expand into payment on buses and trains in the future.
Currently, OCBC card users will get a 5% rebate for purchases made using Android Pay till 31 July 2016.
The current models are supported
Compatibility
Android Pay is available on NFC and HCE-enabled Android phones running Android 4.4 (KitKat) or higher in 2015:
Samsung Galaxy S7
Samsung Galaxy S7 edge
Asus ZenFone 2
Nexus 6P
Blackberry PRIV
Sony Xperia Z5
Sony Xperia M4
Sony Xperia C5
Sony Xperia M5
Huawei MT7-TL10
Alcatel ALE-L21
Before we even managed to add a credit card to the app, our Huawei P8 prompted a message
Android Pay can’t be used
Google is unable to vierfy that your device or the software running on it is Android compatible.
So, it only works with certain models of Android just like Apple Pay works on selected Apple devices while Samsung Pay only work on certain Samsung models.