Google Pay makes its debut, but not for Intesa and Unicredit customers

After Apple Pay and Samsung Pay, the digital payment system Google Pay also arrives in Italy: the app is free, downloadable from today even on non-Android devices and, guarantees Florence Diss, head of Google EMEA, at the press conference in Milan , "will not use the personal data of customers for commercial purposes or for anything else that is not related to the transaction". An important clarification, given that according to the IT giant, 61% of Italian users, almost two out of three, are worried about the use of their sensitive data and about digital fraud. Italy is therefore the 21st country in the world to adopt Google Pay: "Digital payments are now a reality here too - commented Fabio Vaccarono, Country Director of Google Italy since 2012 and until a few weeks ago in the running to become general manager della Rai -: the value of e-commerce has doubled in the last four years, it is now worth 27 billion in our country. There is still a lot to do, but we are no longer bringing up the rear in Europe”.

And it might as well be equipped with all the new tools, given that according to forecasts, by 2020, 100% of commercial establishments in Europe will be equipped with the NFC (near field communication) system, i.e. they will accept contactless payments. From today with the Google Pay app it will be possible to carry them out only by bringing your smartphone close, in stand-by mode (therefore without needing to open the app each time), as well as online payments and those on platforms linked to Google, such as Google Play (for example, for downloading paid apps and content) or YouTube, which for some time now has a paid Premium version. Right now, though, Google Pay isn't for everyone. If it is true that today almost all shops already allow contactless payments (almost 700.000 brands in Italy are affiliated to the Nexi network alone), it is however also true that the credit (or debit) card to be connected to the app must necessarily be from the Visa, Mastercard or Maestro circuit (therefore not American Express) and that the bank must issue cards from the Nexi system. This is the case for almost all banks (more than 150 in Italy are linked to Nexi), but not for the two largest in terms of number of customers, Intesa Sanpaolo and Unicredit.

This means that for the moment (but things could change in a few weeks) over 20 million customers are excluded: Unicredit's almost 9 and Intesa's almost 12 (over 7 of which are digital customers), who instead can access to Samsung Pay and – already for Unicredit and soon also for Intesa – to Apple Pay. Even for online payments, for now the enabled platforms are those of Booking, Deliveroo, Flixbus, Ryanair, Vueling, Tim, MyTaxi, and the e-commerce site Asos. “But over time we will arrive at a much wider network”, guarantee from Google Italy. Meanwhile, for example, Google Play is already ready for contactless payment in the Milan underground network: starting this summer Atm has equipped all stations with at least one turnstile with NFC system; until now it was necessary to bring the credit card or debit card closer, now it will be enough to bring an object that we tend to already have very often in hand, the smartphone.