Google Pay Now Available In Germany

Google Pay, the mobile payment service of Google, is now live in Germany, with customers able to download the payment app via the Google Play Store.

According to a report in telecompaper, users in Germany can use Google Pay if they have a credit card with one of the banks Google is partnered with in the country. The app currently works with Visa and Mastercard credit cards from Commerzbank and Comdirect in Germany, as well as mobile banking startup N26 and the Wirecard mobile payment service Boon. The German banks LBBW and BW-Bank, and the European digital bank Revolut, said they would soon be partners for Google Pay as well. Google Pay can’t be used with EC-banking cards, noted the report.

Germany marks the 19th country Google Pay is now in. MediaMarktSaturn said customers can pay with the Google Pay app and is one of the first retailers in Germany to provide this option to customers.

Earlier this year, Google Pay rolled out a new mobile app for viewing and managing payments across platforms, cards and other payment methods. That’s in addition to plans for making the Google Pay capability accessible to all — no matter what device they’re using, no matter where they’re shopping and no matter whether they’ve established an account on a Google property before. The goal? To enable easy, secure payments for anyone, anywhere in the digital or physical world, all using a single account — the holy grail of modern payments.

It’s a tall order, but it’s one Google’s VP of Project Management for Payments Pali Bhat believes is necessary to move commerce to the next level. The secret sauce of Google Pay, the CEO said, is the ability to convert the hundreds of millions of consumer accounts, with registered card credentials on any one of Google’s touchpoints, into Google Pay accounts. That means consumers with accounts and credentials on file with Google Play, Assistant, YouTube and — the potential mother lode of payments credentials — Chrome are all essentially teed up to become Google Pay accounts.