Android Pay Expands To Mobile Banking Apps

Android Pay announced new partnerships with a handful of banks from around the globe, including Bank of America, USAA, Bank of New Zealand, Discover and mBank.

According to Google, the mobile payment technology will be integrated into the service of the banks’ own mobile apps, making it the first time Android Pay is being made available within mobile banking apps, TechCrunch reported.

While the integration may vary depending on the specific mobile banking app, the essential focus will be on enabling cards to be added to Android Pay from within the banking app.

As the report pointed out, the partnership expansions will enable Android Pay to reach an additional avenue of distribution. The hope is that customers will notice the payment option within their mobile banking app and possibly show interest in testing out mobile payments from there.

“This latest collaboration with banks expands Android Pay’s capabilities as an open platform and moves us closer toward our goal of empowering mobile payments everywhere. We’re continuing to integrate with additional mobile banking apps, so look for updates from your bank about this new feature,” Pali Bhat, global head of Payments products for Google, said in a blog post.

Mobile payment providers are looking to boost what can only be described as underwhelming mobile pay adoption.

According to data from PYMNTS and InfoScout, as of June 2016, more than a third of survey respondents said they rarely consider using Apple Pay. Only about a fifth said they use it every chance they get — fewer respondents than October 2015, when 35 percent of them said the same.

Meanwhile, fewer than 10 percent of survey respondents in an even more recent poll by PYMNTS and InfoScout said they’ve tried Android Pay.

But businesses are beginning to consider using the technology for their own payment needs, which may help the slow rise in mobile pay usage.

According to U.S. Bank’s President of Corporate Payment Systems Jeff Jones, corporates want to give mobile payments a try.

“When you look at Apple Pay made available to consumers and the convenience and security it provides consumers, I think increasingly we’ve seen an interest from corporate clients in terms of having similar types of ability to use Apple Pay,” he recently told PYMNTS.

The bank announced earlier this week that some of its commercial cards are now compatible with Apple Pay, Android Pay and Samsung Pay. This isn’t the first time U.S. Bank has lent support for mobile B2B payments. Last year, the bank revealed that all of its small business card products were now compatible with Apple Pay.