What Google Pay is
Google Pay is Google's way to pay online and in apps, and Google Wallet is the app on Android phones that holds the cards, for tapping to pay wherever Google Pay is accepted. Google introduced Google Pay in 2018 and launched Google Wallet in 2022, and both work in the UAE and in Romania.
Card issuers bring their cards to Google Wallet through a token service provider, usually the card network, which creates a device-specific token in place of the card number. Merchants accept Google Pay through the Google Pay API on Android and the web, with the payment tokenised for their payment gateway. That is why Google Pay sits in both our card issuing and checkout modules.
What it does in your platform
Card issuing
Customers add your card to Google Wallet from your app with push provisioning, and tap to pay with their Android phone the day the card is issued. Each payment reaches the module like any other authorisation, checked against your ledger and your rules.
Checkout
Buyers pay with Google Pay in your merchants' checkout, on the web and in Android apps. Google Pay returns the payment tokenised for the card processor that handles it, so your platform never has to decrypt card data.
How the connection works
Google Pay has two sides in the platform: your cards go into Google Wallet through your issuer processor and the network's token service, and checkout payments go through your card processor. Follow one card through both.
Add to Google Wallet
In your app, the customer adds the card through Google's Push Provisioning API, which Google opens to card issuers it has onboarded. Nobody types a card number.
A device token
The card network's token service creates a device token in place of the card number, and your issuer processor approves it for you.
Pay at checkout
At a merchant using your checkout, the buyer picks Google Pay, on the web or in an Android app, and confirms.
Tokenised for the processor
The Google Pay API returns the payment data for the merchant's card processor, which authorises the payment.
Back to the issuer
The card network detokenises the device token and routes the authorisation to your processor, where the module answers from the ledger.
Next to other wallets
Google Pay sits next to Apple Pay in both modules, and next to PayPal in the checkout. Customers on Android add your cards to Google Wallet and those on iPhone to Apple Wallet, from the same app.
At checkout, Google Pay looks the same whichever processor handles the payment, so card payments can move between processors without changing what buyers see or how merchants integrate.
When Google Pay fits best
A strong fit when
- Many of your customers or your merchants' buyers use Android phones.
- You want a new card in use the moment it is issued, before the physical card arrives.
- Your merchants sell on the web and in Android apps and want a faster checkout.
Also worth a look
- Apple Pay, for customers and buyers on iPhone, in the same app and checkout.
- PayPal in the checkout, for buyers who prefer to pay from a PayPal account.
How we get you live
Google's onboarding
For your cards, we help you through Google's onboarding for card issuers in its Issuer Console, and the push provisioning integration with your processor.
The merchant side
For your checkout, we set up the Google Pay API with gateway tokenisation for your card processor, and request production access in the Google Pay & Wallet Console.
The keys
Processor credentials go into your platform's secrets and nowhere else, and your apps never hold them.
A full test run
Everything runs first in Google Pay's test environment, with its test payment methods, before Google reviews the integration for production.
