Google is expected to start rolling out its mobile payment service, calledAndroid Pay, in the United States later this week.
According to a notice sent to employees at a number of McDonald's restaurants in the US, Android Pay will be available for customers to use from 26 August.
McDonald’s staff information on mobile payment Photo: Android Police
Like Apple Pay, Android Pay will allow people to pay for items in more than 700,000 stores in the US using their mobile phones, after linking their credit or debit card to the new service.
Identity verification is provided via the phone's fingerprint scanner, just likeApple's Touch ID. McDonald’s and Macy’s were slated as two of the places where Android Pay would be available first.
The McDonald's notice, which was first spotted by Android Police, urges employees to review the training materials to remind themselves of the service procedures, which it describes as "the same as with Apple Pay".
The notice also states that Samsung Pay, which is Samsung's rival mobile payment service, will launch on 21 August. This is in fact incorrect – Samsung Pay will launch in Korea next month, as well as in the US a few days later.
However, Samsung's latest smartphones, the Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 Edge+, which both support Samsung Pay, launched in the US on 21 August, so this may be the source of the confusion.
Neither Android Pay nor Samsung Pay currently have UK release dates. However, Samsung said the UK would be the "first country in Europe" to get the new mobile payment service.
While Android Pay relies on the phone having an NFC (near-field communication) chip, Samsung also works using MST (magnetic secure transmission), which allows the user to make a payment by touching their phone to the magstripe reader.
Meanwhile, Apple Pay launched in the UK in July and is currently available for Natwest, RBS, Nationwide, HSBC, First Direct, Santander, Ulster Bank, MBNA, and American Express customers.
Bank of Scotland, TSB, Halifax, Lloyds Bank and M&S Bank will have to wait until later in the autumn to get Apple Pay on their iPhones.
In spite of the McDonald's notices, it is possible that Google will wait to launch Android Pay along with the next version of its mobile operating system, Android Marshmallow, in the third quarter of 2015.
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