Freezing card in relation to Android Pay

Does freezing your card still impact on Android Pay? I only ask because I have read on here that Android Pay stops working sometimes when the Monzo card is frozen and then defrosted.

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Freezing your card will currently also freeze your Android Pay card. :snowflake:

If you have multiple cards in Android Pay, it will pick the next available card in your wallet as the default. Unfortunately, when you defrost your Monzo card, Android Pay will not restore it as the default card, meaning that you will need to manually go in and set it back. :back:

There was a bug where Android Pay cards were not defrosted 100% of the time but I believe we have fixed this now. If it does happen again, let us know through support!

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Thanks Richard that’s put my mind at ease.

I almost wish this wasn’t the case. If I lost my card but not my phone it would be good to continue spending on android pay whilst waiting for the replacement card.

Thanks Richard, is there any update on fixing this, and also on instant-reissuing Android Pay like other banks do when a replacement card is sent?

It’s more of a case of user experience and expectations. People expect that a frozen card is frozen everywhere they see that card exist. The reality is far more complex but we haven’t come up with a good way to present freezing all verses just physical cards yet.

As for instant reissuing, there is no need to reissue the device account number on replacement of the physical card and we update the mapping internally so it technically already works with the exception of updating the displayed “real card” number! :tada:

What about something so simple as exactly that - split the button in half (well, two buttons) and have ‘Freeze Card’ and ‘Freeze Mobile’. Or a pop up to ask what you want to freeze when you hit freeze.

Cool! I seem to remember, and it’s been quite awhile since I was in these shoes, the device account number getting changed (with another issuer) almost immediately (and this was Apple Pay) when a card needed replaced. The correct last four of the ‘real’ card also showed up.

I think ideally, it’d be nice if, in the future, Android Pay (and other services you don’t yet support) were tied to a virtual card with a separate PAN, managed independently of the ‘real’ card. This could also be used for Web purchases and stuff, and potentially some of us wouldn’t even need a physical card. Accounts could be used instantly when opened, and costs potentially reduced if getting a physical card was made optional.

Technically, this is how it works! Mastercard have what’s called PAN mapping to associate the virtual PAN on Android Pay to the actual card PAN.

Ah, I thought the DAN on Android Pay was tied to the real PAN. Cool there’s an intermediate step though (and that it still all maps properly for things like TfL that need to determine the DAN from the PAN to show journey history).

Still, it would be cool to get this split further so one could have a virtual card only account. A full PAN, expiration, and CVC2 for use on the Web and Android Pay support but no actual card sent out.

Obviously not great for travel to countries with low or no contactless penetration like the US and Japan, but perfect here in the UK and sufficient for many people as an option.

You could as there is nothing stopping you from using Android Pay as normal then if you see a transaction you don’t recognise, freeze the card. Remember you have up to the minute alerts for that very reason.

Would you still be protected? My understanding is the fraud protection of Mastercard is dependent on you reporting your card lost/stolen as soon as reasonably possible once you realise it has happened.

Probably not but it is a work around. I did not say anything about the legal side of it as I know whoever does it would be on shaky ground. It’s however the only way to use Android Pay with a lost card.

I am not gonna lie, in a pitch I would possibly risk it but you have to face up to the consequences should they occur.

So I’ve been wondering about this, and I wonder if anyone can shed some light for me. Why is it that Android Pay and Apple Pay require the issuing bank to do anything? Why didn’t they just design it so that the interface between the virtual card and the real card was entirely done by MasterCard/Visa/American Express, and the issuing bank received payments exactly the same as though they were made with the physical card. Then you’d instantly have compatibility across all banks without needing each individual bank to do extra work.

Tesco sort of do this with their Pay+ app - it transmits via QR code rather than NFC, but the concept is similar. As far as I can tell, when I use a card with Pay+, the transaction appears in my bank statement exactly the same as if I had used it with the store directly.

This might shed some light on the technical design for you:

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