How to use Google Pay

(Image credit: Getty)

Knowing how to apply Google Pay will mean forgetting your wallet when yous get out the house isn't as big a deal anymore. With more than and more than stores, gas stations, and other retailers accepting contactless payments, setting upward Google Pay on your Android telephone will ensure you're all set to make payments without needing a credit or debit card.

Setting up Google Pay on Android is relatively simple and just requires a couple of things. Starting time, your phone needs to have NFC, a scrap that lets it communicate with payment terminals. If you're running ane of the best Android phones, chances are yous're good to get. Fifty-fifty if you're running a lower-end smartphone, such every bit the OnePlus Nord N10 5G, it's likely to have NFC. If you're not sure whether your phone has NFC, you can check by downloading the Google Pay app from the Play Store. If your phone doesn't have NFC, the app will tell you when you lot first open information technology.

Image showing wireless payment terminal with a person holding a smartphone over it — (Image credit: Shutterstock)

2d, y'all need to use a uniform credit or debit card, or an eligible PayPal account. To see a list of approved card providers in the US, you tin check the Google Pay Assist page. If you lot're in the UK, check out the United kingdom Google Pay Aid page.

If your phone and payment method are compatible, you're at present ready to follow our guide on how to employ Google Pay.

How to use Google Pay

1. If Google Pay isn't already installed on your phone, download it from the Play Store and launch information technology later it finishes installing.

ii. You'll at present be prompted to fix your location permissions for Google Pay. Turning on location services lets Google Pay alert you lot when you've entered a identify that lets you utilize the service, only the app will however piece of work fine if you chose to deny location permissions.

iii. To use your phone to pay in stores, tap Ready It Up.

four. On the next screen, you can either select a credit carte that's already saved to your Google Business relationship or add a new i. For this case, we'll add a new card, which y'all can exercise past tapping "Add a new card."

5. You lot'll exist prompted to line upwards your card within a viewfinder so the app tin can browse your bill of fare's information without you having to blazon it in manually. You tin can also opt to fill in your carte du jour number, expiration date, and CVC yourself, if you adopt. Next, you'll be asked to fill up in your address and telephone number, though that information may auto-populate if information technology'south already affiliated with your Google account.

6. Read your issuer's terms and tap Accept and Continue at the bottom, and Google will contact your bank to go your card approved.

7. Google Pay reminds you information technology can exist used to pay when your smartphone is unlocked. Tap Got It at the lesser to confirm. If you haven't already prepare up a screen lock method, such as a blueprint, PIN, or fingerprint, you lot'll be asked to add one.

8. Your carte du jour provider will now inquire yous to verify your ID via text, spider web login, a security app, or email. Select your preferred option and tap Continue at the bottom.

nine. Enter the verification code you received and tap Submit.

You're at present all ready to start using Google Pay in stores, in apps, or online. If you demand to add an additional card in the future, simply tap the blue action push in the lower-correct corner of the cards screen and echo steps 3 through nine.

Should you wish to ever remove a card, simply tap on it. So, tap the iii-dot card in the upper right corner and select Remove Payment Method from the list of options that appears.

The most heady aspect of Google Pay for most users is the ability to pay at a brick-and-mortar store with your smartphone, freeing yous from the demand to carry a bunch of credit cards. There's as well a security benefit to using Google Pay, as information technology doesn't actually transmit your credit menu information to the seller, instead using a unique encrypted number for the transaction.

While we still aren't at the bespeak that every store accepts mobile payments, the number is e'er growing. As for the process of actually using the app in a store, it couldn't exist simpler. Here's how to use Google Pay in stores.

How to utilize Google Pay in stores

1. Unlock your smartphone.

2. Concur it up to the payment concluding as yous would with a credit or debit bill of fare.

3. A checkmark will confirm that the payment is complete.

Now you lot've figured out how to utilise Google Pay, take a look at our choice of the best Google Assistant commands. To give your phone an instant boost, check out how to speed upward your Android phone or tablet. Or for something more than technical, see how to print from an Android phone or tablet.

Dale Play tricks is How-to Editor at Tom's Guide, helping people get the nigh out of their technology. He'due south been a tech nerd always since childhood, when he used the money from his first job as a paperboy to buy a subscription to GamesMaster magazine, and has a whole room at home dedicated every bit a shrine to the countless gadgets he'due south purchased over the decades. Dale was previously a presenter, reporter and editor in China, where he likewise worked every bit a copywriter for OnePlus at its Shenzhen HQ.