PayPal brings passwordless login to Android

Payment app PayPal wants to make it easier to log in on Android devices without a password. To keep it safe, passkeys are used. This has been possible on Apple devices since the end of 2022, but is now also coming to Android. Initially only in the United States.

Login to PayPal without a password

There, the new feature for Android is now being released in phases, with the expectation that it will also be available outside the United States later in the year. PayPal writes, “Once a PayPal user has created a passkey, users no longer need to remember or type their password to log in, making it easier for them to checkout.”

Passkeys are an industry standard developed by the FIDO Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium. They are cryptographic key pairs that can be unlocked thanks to, for example, a fingerprint, facial recognition or a pattern. The idea is that you no longer have to come up with a difficult password and type it in, but then you only have to look at your selfie camera to access PayPal on your Android device, so to speak. It’s a good way to ensure that phish hackers don’t have a chance to see what someone’s password is through keyloggers, for example. After all, you no longer type in confidential information.

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Create Passkey on PayPal

PayPal (like Google and Microsoft, among others) is a member of FIDO and claims to be one of the first financial services providers to make this type of verification available. It believes that password keys will solve the weakness of password authentication. If it is (hopefully) also possible in the Netherlands later this year, then this is how you request such a PayPal Passkey on Android. You log in with the Chrome browser and use your name and password as always. After that, the option ‘Create a passkey’ will appear automatically. You confirm your identity exactly as you normally do to unlock your phone and you will be taken to the PayPal home screen. The next time you go back to PayPal on your Android, you can use the Passkey.

There are a few conditions attached to this new way of logging in to the payment service: your device must use at least Android 9 and you must use Google Chrome to log in to the Paypal website.

Do you use passkeys, if so where? Do you find it useful? Leave it now in the comments to this article.