RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Calif.–CO-OP Financial Services said both credit unions and consumers have expressed a great deal of interest in the announcement that Android Pay is coming to the market.
Android Pay is similar to Apple Pay in a number of ways, such as how a card is loaded and the use of fingerprint authentication, but it also differs in that unlike Apple Pay, which uses the Secure Element (SE) of the phone, Android Pay will rely on host card emulation (HCE) to enable NFC, CO-OP noted.
“This broadens options for digital wallets, but there are still a number of questions surrounding the technology, which will be used for Android Pay,” CO-OP said.
CO-OP said it is currently in Android Pay discussions with both Visa and MasterCard so that it can enable the functionality on behalf of its credit unions and their members. Those discussions, the company said, are in their earliest stages and as a result CO-OP does not know whether the adoption of Android Pay will require code changes on its CO-OP switch.
“A deeper evaluation of HCE and its security components will also be taking place prior to launch,” CO-OP said. “But for those credit unions who have already adopted Apple Pay, once the industry is ready to move forward (likely late 2015 or early 2016), much of the infrastructure will be familiar. The same token vaults and tools at each network will be used for Apple Pay and Android Pay, as well as other wallets like Samsung Pay. Enrollment processes will likely be similar as will transaction capabilities.”