Android Pay On The Way To The UK

It looks like Android Pay will be making its debut across the pond in the U.K. at the end of March. The launch follows a little under six months after the launch of Android Pay in its current instantiation in the U.S. last September.

The reported launch, it is worth noting, still remains a rumor, as The Telegraph is citing anonymous sources, which are forecasting that Google will announce Android Pay’s British launch by the end of the month.

Android Pay will function much like Apple Pay in the U.K. and will work at retailers that have contactless payments terminals. Android Pay will also, presumably, face the same payments caps that contactless payments routinely face in the U.K.

And, keeping things interesting, Samsung Pay (the third runner in the mobile payments race that emerged in 2015) is also planning a British launch sometime this year.

The U.K. is a popular launching point for mobile players due to the higher-than-average saturation of contactless mobile payments and terminals that accept them. Figures from the transport authority in London, for example, demonstrate that 35,000 trips per day are now paid for using mobile devices — a sevenfold increase since Apple Pay was first integrated into the contactless ticketing system.