The thousands of Canadian Android faithful who have no doubt gazed in envy at their iPhone-wielding rivals using Apple Pay at their favourite retailers had their prayers answered today, as Google Inc. officially revealed its mobile payment service, Android Pay, will be released in Canada soon.
In a May 18 blog post for developers discussing the Android Payment application program interface (API), Google vice-president of payment products Pali Bhat noted that Canada was one of many additional Android Pay markets “coming soon,” alongside Brazil, Russia, Spain, and Taiwan.
Bhat’s announcement follows comments made during a May 17 Google I/O session titled “Powering Commerce Online and In-Store with Google Payments,” in which Google product management team members Gerardo Capiel and Varouj Chitilian also confirmed that Google Pay will go live in Canada “in the coming months.”
“Over the past year out team has been working around the clock to scale this foundation globally,” Chitilian said in the session, which was posted on YouTube and can be seen below. “I’m proud to say that Android Pay is now available in 10 markets, but we’re not stopping there. In the coming months, we’ll be launching in Brazil, Canada, Russia, Spain, and Taiwan. So the momentum and traction is incredible.”
No further information regarding the service’s Canadian release was given, though Bhat wrote that in addition to previously-announced partnerships with Visa and Mastercard, Google was also working on a streamlined mobile checkout feature for PayPal users.
