Google's Android Pay adds banks, helps you spend your money

Google's Android Pay is hooking up with banks around the world.

The mobile payments service announced Wednesday that it's partnered with Bank of America, Bank of New Zealand, Discover, mBank and USAA. Now customers of these banks can add their cards to Android Pay.

"This latest collaboration with banks expands Android Pay's capabilities as an open platform, and moves us closer toward our goal of empowering mobile payments everywhere," Pali Bhat, Google's global head of payment products, wrote in a blog post.

Mobile payments, which have been discussed for years, have been slow to take off. But many more customers are expected to start using their phones to buy items in stores now that three of the biggest tech companies in the world -- Apple, Google and Samsung -- have introduced new mobile-payments platforms.

Unlike with Apple Pay, online retailers have been a little slower to adopt Android's mobile payment system. But Google is aiming to fix that. Besides partnering with major banks, Android Pay also announced last October that it partnered with Visa and Mastercard. The company has emphasized that its open platform makes Android Pay integration easy for merchants and developers.

Google is also pushing Android Pay to other countries. Besides the US, it's also accepted in the UK, Ireland, Japan, Poland, Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong and New Zealand.

"We're continuing to integrate with additional mobile banking apps," Bhat said. "So look for updates from your bank about this new feature."

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