Update: Google says “We’re excited to bring Android Pay to Canadians, however it is currently not available in Canada.” Obviously, however, plenty of people are having no problem adding a select few cards using unmodified APKs, as I detailed below.
We tore down an update to the Android Pay app back in October which revealed forthcoming support for Interac, a network for processing debit payments across most major banks in Canada. Now, some Canadian users are reporting that the payments service suddenly started working with some cards this morning…
We’ve independently confirmed with one person who uses a Scotiabank Visa card that they were able to add the card to Android Pay app this morning. This person told us that they tried adding the card last night unsuccessfully, so this definitely seems to be a switch that was flipped recently. This requires the Android Pay app, though, which isn’t yet officially available in Canada via the Play Store.
One Redditor has also documented his experience this morning
I got an update to Android Pay, version 1.12.141346482, this morning and noticed it was showing all my cards as “Not Accepted” except one, a ScotiaBank SCENE Visa card.
I tried adding the card and it showed me the Apple Pay terms (which isn’t new, it had been doing that for a while now) but this time after accepting the conditions my card was successfully added. See here.
This isn’t a full rollout yet, and definitely not all banks that use Interac (which include TD Canada Trust, RBC, BMO, CIBC, Scotiabank, Desjardins, National Bank of Canada, ATB Financial, Meridian, and more) are showing support in the Android Pay app quite yet. It also appears that the few banks that have added support as of the time of this writing require the latest version of the Android Pay app, which you can download here.
Google hasn’t pushed out a press release for the official announcement, but if people are today starting to see some cards working witht he service, that announcement is likely imminent. We’ll update this post when it drops.
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