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> There is no user purchase validation step! I just swipe my phone and transaction is done. I get this is the same as using a CC but in theory there is such a huge opportunity to improve the experience. How about popping up a thing where I confirm the purchase, even add a tip or sign for some purchases? WTF???

I disagree with you here. I want the payment to be as fast and painless as possible. A "tip" screen, a "sign" screen, etc. would all be very annoying. I suppose adding these optionally somehow could work though.

On a technical note, it's not quite the same as swiping a CC. There's some authentication to start - you must authenticate on your phone (via fingerprint or pattern or whatever lock mechanism you have) before you can make a payment. In addition, a one-time token is sent instead of your actual CC number, so the retailer couldn't reuse your payment info. In other words, it's much more secure than "signing" ever was and you get some nice security benefits by using your phone as opposed to swiping a credit card.

Good points. About validation step, how about a notification that counts down and auto accepts unless you cancel or something? Never thought about it before but having a guy in a random skeezy mini mart say "3.75" then I just tap and it is done without me every seeing if he ripped me off seems sketchy. And that is more sketchy than most CC machines because usually it actually does ask you to confirm the amount which google pay does not.

Exactly. Buying with a card is like handing over your wallet for the cashier to fish out the correct amount; a new system using a phone should be taken as an opportunity to put you back in control. The only friction would be one tap to confirm. The tap could double as your action of choosing which card to pay with.

(Confirming on the vendor's reader still requires you to trust their machine, not yours.)

Which is no different to the tap-and-go we have had for years. Just make sure you glance at the balance on the screen before tapping.

At least with my configuration (because I'm really not sure which parts of this are bank-driven, which are OS-driven, which are app-driven, et cetera - it's a bit of a mess) I get a notification telling me how much I paid and to where, which can be dismissed at some later point.

[1] is a nice summary about how contactless payment works under the hood.

[1] https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-8965-decoding_contactless_card_p...

Don't your tills have a screen on the NFC pad? All the UK ones do

I used Apple Pay for the first time recently and it felt like magic. Just hover it near, choose your credit card (which had a full sized image), and then it instantly pays using Touch ID. I think some of the issues you listed with Google Pay are the same issues with Apple Pay.

I also really like WeChat Pay, very convenient, customizable, and verifiable.

Apple Pay feels very "magical" while WeChat Pay feels very "careful/customizable".

> How about popping up a thing where I confirm the purchase, even add a tip or sign for some purchases?

I may be wrong but as far as I know this simply isn't possible with the existing contactless payment protocol. That standard goes way beyond Google (and they don't command anywhere near enough of the market to make their own addition to it).

> even add a tip or sign for some purchases?

Why would anyone want to sign on a phone? Why would anyone want to sign for a credit card purchase at all?

Consider this the obligatory comment of "why do Americans want to sign for credit card purchases when PIN is so much better?". I don't even think I have a signature on my card.

I haven't even swiped or inserted my card in months, everything is contactless with my card, I'm concerned I'll forget my PIN.

Because Americans can't be expected to remember the PIN to their CC and that would cause lost sales.

> cards listed are only viewable as huge generic CC images and you can't customize either the image or even give it a name.

The generic images are only used for cards that do not participate in Android Pay, and that use the fallback mechanism for unsupported cards. Participating cards get fully branded images from the participating bank.

> When making payments there is no quick way to select which card you want to pay with.

You can apparently make app shortcuts to individual cards, if you have the Pixel launcher or a third-party launcher with similar features.

When I say generic I mean the skeuomorphic fully branded credit card images. Why would anyone want that except as a small and possibly enlargeable icon? I want "groceries", "fun", "bills", "work", etc

> Why would anyone want that

Well, if you are used to physical cards, it's pretty much the same management mechanism, and mass adoption probably rests on maximal familiarity.

I'd certainly like better power-user options on top of that, but it's a reasonable default, and quite usable.

> Well, if you are used to physical cards, it's pretty much the same management mechanism…

Not really. I have 2 cards from the same bank and they look identical. I grabbed a sharpie and wrote on one of them so I could tell them apart. Sadly I can't do that on Apple Pay (and it sounds like Google Pay takes the same approach)—I just have to memorize the last 4 digits of one of them. Sigh.

Exactly this. The current CC situation isn't good either but at least they have an excuse because they are old as dinosaurs physical cards and there are workarounds like you mentioned (I do the exact same thing with the sharpie). Reusing them as the only way we identify payment options in the app is completely nuts.

That's exactly what I want. FYI

Can you make a payment with locked screen? Otherwise, isn't having the screen unlocked consent enough?