NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Google has launched Android Pay in its fourth country, Australia, with one of the country’s big four banks, ANZ, but the launch was beset by delays that have kept another of the big four, Westpac, on the sidelines for now.
NFC Times has learned that at least one of the reasons for the Westpac delay is a problem with tokenization, and the bank may have tried to use a third-party token service provider. This may have held up the launch of Android Pay in Australia for all issuers. Google had promised the launch would happen during the first half of this year.
Westpac is expected to join Android Pay soon, according to Google. And the bank is believed to be working with major schemes, such as Visa and MasterCard, for tokenization, said a source. Tokens are a security measure that replace original card primary account numbers, or PANs, in Android Pay, as they do with Apple Pay and Samsung Pay and most bank-issued HCE payments apps. If the token is stolen, the main card account number is not compromised.
