Last week I shared with you our experience of using the new Android Pay App on a family shopping trip. Shopping is ALWAYS a fun way to spend the day and it was great to be able to test the app in a real life situation. You never really know how things are going to work for you until you properly test them out.
We had a great trip and today I want to share with you a few of my concerns and also the things that I really liked about the app.
Potential issues
- As I mentioned in the first post, as with any financial app, my first concern was over safety. I think this is a natural concern, but one which was very quickly resolved. Android Pay use a unique number rather than your actual card information. All of the transactions are secure and protected. So if your card is used for an unauthorised transaction you will not be liable.
- Android Pay is accepted anywhere contactless payments are – but not everywhere accepts contactless yet. As contactless rolls out to even more shops this concern will disappear, but for now it is worth double checking where accepts this form of payment.
- At some shops and restaurants you can make transactions over the £30 contactless limit. This isn’t available everywhere yet, so at the moment it reduces the convenience for me a little. But when it’s widely available it will be great to tap and pay without worrying if it’s a few pounds over the £30 limit.
Benefits
- I think it’s great that you can add various cards to the app if your bank or credit card issuer supports it. In terms of Mastercard, you can use credit, debit, small business and reloadable prepaid cards from participating issuers.
- You will still also earn loyalty points and offers are automatically added from participating retailers.
- It is SOOOOOO easy. I am that person in a shop with a small child, loads of bags, struggling to find my purse at the bottom of my handbag. However, I always have my phone ready and waiting in my pocket. I found just being able to grab the phone and tap on the terminal so much easier, quicker and definitely a lot less hassle.
Looking at the app overall, I feel the benefits of this quick and easy method of payment far out weigh any of my concerns.
Disclosure: This is a collaborative post.