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Case study
Integrating Apple Pay and Google Pay Services for Contactless Payment Processing
We helped the Berlin-based PensionTech startup to integrate Apple Pay and Google Pay services and seamlessly integrated it with their existing infrastructure.
Business Challenge
Our client, is a Germany-based FinTech startup focused on long-term investing and digital retirement planning. The company aims to empower younger generations to take control of their financial future by providing simple, transparent, and technology-driven investment tools. By combining mobile-first financial products with automated portfolio management, company seeks to make wealth building accessible to a broader audience.
As part of expanding its product ecosystem, our customer planned to launch a digital investment card that would connect everyday spending with long-term investing. The goal was to create a financial product that allows users to invest passively while managing daily payments - effectively merging personal finance, payments, and long-term wealth building into a single mobile experience.
However, launching a modern payment card solution requires complex integrations with card issuing partners, payment networks, and digital wallets. The solution also had to comply with strict European financial regulations and security requirements while ensuring a seamless mobile user experience.
To successfully deliver this product, our client needed a technology partner capable of supporting the development of secure, scalable payment infrastructure and integrating integrate Apple Pay and Google Pay to their product.
Both Google Pay and Apple Pay come with a set of standard requirements that financial institutions must meet if they wish to offer these mobile payment services. These standards allow Google and Apple to make sure their services work flawlessly no matter the provider.
Based on successful evaluation of Plexteq expertise, our client turned decided to establish a partnership with us to smoothly implement contactless payment services.
Key Challenges
1
Meet strict Apple Pay and Google Pay certification requirements
2
Design and implement backend services capable of handling card provisioning requests, managing tokens, and securely processing sensitive payment data while maintaining compliance with industry security standards and financial regulations.
3
While the backend integrations were complex, the user experience had to remain simple and intuitive. The mobile application needed to provide a smooth flow for adding cards to Apple Pay and Google Pay, handling device verification, and managing wallet-related actions.
Solution Delivered
Our team worked closely with the client to implement full support for Apple Pay and Google Pay across the platform’s backend and mobile applications.
The project included the development of backend services responsible for card provisioning, tokenization workflows, and secure communication with payment network providers and digital wallet platforms. These services were designed to comply with the strict requirements set by Apple, Google, and the card schemes while ensuring secure handling of sensitive payment data.
On the mobile side, we integrated Apple Pay and Google Pay functionality directly into the client's mobile application, enabling users to easily add their cards to their digital wallets and manage wallet-related actions from within the app.
To initiate Apple Pay integration, we aligned the banking app’s functionality with Apple’s requirements, which are divided into 11 primary categories:
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Provisioning
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Apple Pay transaction processing
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​User authentication (ID&V)
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Issuer mobile app
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Fraud prevention
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Card art/metadata
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Push notifications
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Card lifecycle management (CLM)
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Issuer loyalty systems
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Provisioning notifications
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Service notifications
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Our team implemented the Google Pay counterpart by aligning the backend tokenization services with Google Pay Push Provisioning requirements. This ensures that users can add their payment credentials to Google Wallet directly from the banking app without manually entering card details.
To achieve full Google Pay functionality, we addressed these 10 critical service areas:
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Push provisioning (in-app provisioning)
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Tokenization workflows
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User authentication (ID&V)
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Host card emulation (HCE) management
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Branding & asset management
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Card lifecycle management (CLM)
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Real-time transaction notifications
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Fraud & risk assessment
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Deep linking & intent handling
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Security & compliance
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The entire development process was divided into three phases:
↳ The first phase was developing the registration process, which involved:
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customer registration
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device binding
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checking device SDK eligibility
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implementing positive and negative eligibility check scenarios
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mobile PIN setup and wallet activation
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digitization and tokenization processes
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↳ The second phase was developing the payment process:
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One-tap scenario: Payment is initiated by the customer launching an application manually. The customer picks a card, enters their PIN, and chooses Pay now, which starts the payment process. Then the application is ready to exchange data with a terminal. If the user locks the phone, drops the application to the background, or hits cancel, the process is interrupted.
Two-tap scenario: Payment is initiated by tapping the device to a terminal. Then the user provides a PIN on the device, after which a secondary tap is needed. Like in the one-tap scenario, the process can be canceled by locking the device or dropping the payment application to the background, or if the operation times outs.
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↳ The third phase was implementing the card lifecycle:
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Suspend: A card can be temporarily suspended from posting transactions. This is communicated with Mastercard digital enablement services (MDES) and blocks the possibility to complete any transactions.
Unsuspend: Activates a temporarily suspended card. As a result, the card is no longer suspended, and the wallet application can start processing transactions and collecting SUKs for this card.
Delete: A card can be deleted from the app. Keep in mind that the permanent account number (PAN) isn’t what’s deleted from the wallet database. Instead, what’s deleted is the virtual card number — the result of digitization. This process can’t be undone, but customers can digitize their cards once again to re-add them.
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Main implementation differences between Apple Pay and Google Pay
Key Results
Enabled secure contactless payments via Apple Pay and Google Pay
Provided a seamless card provisioning experience within the mobile application via smartphones and wearables
Ensured compliance with payment network, wallet provider, and security requirements
Built scalable backend services supporting digital wallet integrations
Project Highlights
Industries: FinTech, Digital Banking, Mobile
Expertise: Big Data, Cloud Services
Market: Germany
Team size: 3 engineers
Cooperation: 2021 – 2022
Technologies:
Java, Oracle Weblogic, Oracle Cloud, Oracle Database 12
Business Outcome
With digital wallet support in place, our client strengthened its mobile-first financial ecosystem and improved the convenience and accessibility of its payment services for users across supported markets offering a secure and convenient way to pay.
With the help of Plexteq, our client managed to roll out Apple Pay and Google Pay services blazing fast to market in Germany. Contactless mobile payments are now available to all of the startup’s retail customers with Mastercard. We helped our client continue growing and enhance the customer experience.
The solution we’re developing brings these advantages to our client:
↳ Increased customer satisfaction
Demand for mobile payments is on the rise. The launch of Apple Pay and Google Pay services allows our client to target digital-savvy customers. By providing easy and highly secure payments, our client has increased their customer satisfaction score.
↳ Competitive edge
As not all banks and financial institutions let their customers use mobile payments, our client has a competitive edge.
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