NFC Times Exclusive Insight ­– Google’s recently announced API for NFC payments applications, Android Pay, is expected to support apps using host card emulation, or HCE, but also likely will support storage of keys on hardware.

And recent statements by Google at a developers' conference indicated it would support storing of the payment encryption keys in secure elements or the trusted execution environment to support HCE.

Android Pay, set to launch later in 2015, will be an API layer that developers will be able to use to add NFC mobile payments and also in-app payments to their Android applications. This is already possible, but Google claims that its new API will make the process easier for developers. Google has not set a launch date for Android Pay, but is widely expected to release more information at its annual conference for developers in May 2015.