Chrome to add support for Payment Request API, allowing users to complete purchases w/ third-party apps

As we near Google I/O officially kicking off, we’re starting to see some hints emerge as to what the company has up its sleeve for this year’s event. A new report from XDA this evening details Google’s plans to adopt the Payment Request, a move that will be announced at Google I/O…

Essentially, the Payment Request APU will allow users to pay in Chrome using third-party apps. This means that no longer will users have to go all the way through the checkout process and input credit card and bill information when trying to buy something. Instead, the website developers will be able to launch a third-party app such as a banking app or PayPal to quickly complete the checkout process.

Support for the Payment Request API has been in Chromium since earlier this month, but Google will likely announce that Chrome will begin shipping with support for the API. However, there are several other steps before the Payment Request API will truly be useful.

As outlined by XDA, both merchants and applications need to add support for the Payment Request API:

In order to accomplish this task, web browsers must support the Payment Request API, online merchants need to support the API by implementing what’s called a Payment Method Identifier, and Android applications need to implement new services.

Nevertheless, there’s a plethora of information already out there about the Payment Request API so ideally developers and website are already working to support the new platform. Much more technical information can be found in XDA’s full breakdown here.