You’d be hard pressed to find a place that doesn’t take card as payment these days. Even small businesses such as food trucks and coffee shops are utilizing square technology, and there’s less need to keep cash in your wallet. However, the mobile pay trend is growing in popularity at a rate that may one day obliterate the need to carry plastic, as well. As event planners are constantly on the move, with a constant switching of carry-on bags, purses, and wallets, it becomes difficult to know which card is where. Thankfully, Google is taking steps to make day-to-day mobile transactions easier.
Introducing Pay with Google
The tech giant announced Monday that it’s launching a new way for customers to pay with mobile devices, using any card you have on file—including those saved to their Google Accounts via products such as Google Play, YouTube, Chrome and Android Pay. Dubbed Pay with Google, the option ties all your saved payment options together in a single interface, which app makers and retailers can then implement using only a few code lines.
The goal is to create a faster, more seamless checkout for retailers and consumers. As busy event planners, this technology saves time in lines, at airports, at hotels and even on airplanes by eliminating a need to dig through wallets searching for the right cards or wait for the loading of multiple mobile payment apps.
The technology has been in the works for a long time, and was announced this May, at Google’s I/O Developer Conference. It’s aptly named The Google Payment API.
How Does It Work?
When you opt to check out using Pay with Google, you’ll be presented with a list of payment cards saved in your Google account. To continue, you just tap the card you want to use, and Google sends this information, along with your shipping address, to the merchant, who then handles the rest of the transaction.
Allowing Google users to tap into any payment card they have on file with Google, rather than those they’ve specifically saved to Android Pay, creates an easier system for transactions as well as better conversions for merchants. This technology is pivotal for vendors and event planners alike; pay with Google provides an easy way to pay on the road, in your hotel or on the plane.
Where Can I Use It?
Pay with Google presents a seamless way to pay for anything from hotel and airfares to that much-needed, early morning cup of Joe. You can use Pay with Google on your laptop, mobile phone, iPad and other devices. We live in a technology-dependent society, in which we need to use multiple devices and interfaces frequently; this makes Pay with Google a helpful modern-day program.
Google partnered with more than 40 payment providers to make integrations simpler for merchants who want to offer Pay with Google. Kayak, Doordash and Wish are just a few of the services currently providing Pay with Google in their Chrome browsers.
The payment providers—including PayPal’s Braintree, Stripe, Vantiv, Worldpay, Adyen and Groupe Paysafe—will continue to process the consumer’s transactions just as they’ve done before.
What Happens Next?
Because the option to Pay with Google requires merchants to use the Google Payment API, the option is not yet available everywhere. The API is however, available globally, which allows for room to reach other markets, including Brazil and Europe.
For now, Google Pay works within specific mobile apps and Chrome, with potential to grow and expand to include other browsers in the future.
