Google announced Android Pay earlier today, a new service for Android that let’s you make payments directly from your Android device. It saves you the hassle and risk of handing out your Credit/Debit card to unknown hands.

Android Pay will work on all NFC enabled Android devices running Android 4.4 KitKat and above. As of now, the service is only available in the USA but it should soon be available in other parts of the world UK, India, etc. Also, Android Pay currently accepts cards from American Express, Discover, MasterCard and Visa.

There’s no doubt that Android Pay secures us from handing out our precious cards to unknown hands, but in the age of digitization there are always chances of getting digitally hacked. So what are the security measures Google has put in to safeguard the credit/debit cards we store on Android Pay app.

As per the official announcement by Google, Android Pay is supported by industry standard tokenization. Meaning, your credit or debit card number will never be shared to the payment terminal when making payments via Android Pay. Instead, Google will use a virtual account number as an extra layer of security. Also, you’re always notified of payments made through Android Pay so you can catch a suspicious activity if it ever happens.

In case of lost or stolen device, you can always use the Android Device Manager service to remotely lock your device with a new password OR completely wipe the device of all your personal information/data.

That said, if you’re going to use Android Pay on your device, we’d strongly recommend you to use a lockscreen security if you aren’t already using one. Keeping your money on your device just adds more risk of it being stolen or misused, so make sure you keep your own basic security as well on the device.

Happy Androiding!