MWC 2015: Sundar Pichai announces new mobile payment system 'Android Pay'

At the MWC, Google’s product czar Sundar Pichai announced that the company was working on its own mobile payments system like  **Apple Pay** and the recently announced **Samsung Pay** . Google’s Android Pay as it is called is a new product that will rely on NFC to allow users to make payments at stores using their mobile phones. “There will also be an ‘API layer’ that allows other companies to support secure payments on Android in both physical stores and via apps,” says a report on The Verge. Essentially Android Pay will also have an API layer for other companies to develop apps or payments in their stores. According to a report on Engadget, Android Pay should be seen “as an OS-level service that makes it easy for app makers or retailers to let you buy things using your Android device.” The report on The Verge quotes Pichai as saying, “We are doing it in a way in which anybody else can build a payments service on top of Android.” While Pichai didn’t given details of Android Pay, it will could “accommodate biometric sensors as well,” notes the report. For now Google Wallet, the service which makes payments possible on Android’s Play Store, will continue and Pichai said that the service will continue even after Android Pay gets launched. According to a previous report, the company is expected to launch the Android Pay API at the **I/O in May** . Apple launched the Apple Pay system with the iPhone 6 last year and now Samsung has followed suit with its own Samsung Play. Recently research firm Strategy Analytics had predict that payments made via Near Field Communications (NFC)-enabled mobile handsets will account for $130 Billion in worldwide consumer retail spend by 2020. With Apple and Samsung getting their own system in place. Google obviously doesn’t want to be left behind.