The following sections describe the elements that are key in making sure you as a merchant are ready to accept Google Pay contactless transactions.
Google Pay works with credit or debit cards from participating card issuers on any NFC-enabled Android device running Lollipop 5.0 or higher. All you’ll need is a contactless point-of-sale terminal to receive NFC (Near Field Communication) payments.
The first step you need to take is to ensure that your payment terminals are contactless-enabled and that their NFC readers are turned on. Google Pay supports EMV contactless and MSD (Magstripe) contactless payments (if EMV contactless isn’t available).
Depending on your payment terminal vendor, several NFC-compatible terminal models are likely already available for you. Usually such a terminal displays one or more of the following logos and is compliant with the ISO 14443 standard:
Figure 1: Common NFC logo
Please contact your terminal provider if you are unsure whether your current terminals support NFC payments or if you need guidance on how to upgrade or enable it.
Your point-of-sale system needs to be able to receive the contactless payment data coming from your payment terminal and pass it along to your payment processor. Depending on your point-of-sale system, some configuration changes might be required to enable contactless payments.
Please work with your point-of-sale provider to ensure your system is ready to accept contactless payment data.
Your acquirer is the financial institution in charge of processing the payments on your behalf. When a customer pays in your store with Google Pay, it transmits the cardholder data to the contactless payment terminal. In turn, the terminal forwards the data to the point of sale which ultimately sends it to the acquirer. Most acquirers already support contactless payments, but may require specific configuration or setup for your merchant account to enable them.
Please work with your acquirer institution to make sure they are ready to process contactless payments and to ensure that they have enabled that capability for your account.
Support for contactless payments does not add specific compliance requirements beyond the standard PCI compliance required for processing payments. The security requirements already in place for accepting card payments as mandated by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) are sufficient.
Please work with your terminal provider, point-of-sale provider, and acquirer to ensure ongoing compliance with the required security measures.
Your store associates should to be familiar with how contactless payments differ from traditional ones, both from a customer experience point of view and from their point-of-sale interaction.
When paying with Google Pay, customers may indicate to their cashier or sales associate that they want to “Pay with my phone,” “Tap my phone,” or even “Pay with Google.” Please make sure that your associates have received the appropriate training and that they have been able to experiment through several test scenarios including a normal payment, a return/refund, a declined transaction, etc.
For more information on how you can download Google Pay graphics for display in your store, visit our article on letting customers know you accept Google Pay.