Google, Visa and Mastercard want to get rid of passwords

Hate passwords? So do tech companies, merchants and payment processors. 

People pick easy ones and don't update them, making them insecure, or they forget them and abandon carts full or merchandise — lost money for retailers. 

To help solve this problem, Alphabet's Google has partnered with Visaand Mastercard to extend the reach of Android Pay — which lets users verify their identity without a password, using a fingerprint, for example — to merchants that accept online payments through Visa Checkout or Masterpass.

The new partnerships will open up hundreds of thousands of new sites to Android Pay starting in 2017. Google announced the news in a press release during the Money20/20 conference in Las Vegas. Pali Bhat, global head of payment products at Google will give a keynote address today at 2 p.m. Pacific. 

"We see today's partnerships as being hugely beneficial for both merchants and consumers — one that enables merchants to drive higher conversions without extra development work, while offering online shoppers a frictionless payment experience that no longer requires them to remember passwords/pins, or even open an app," said Bhat, via email. 

Android Pay's open platform makes it especially easy for partners to build new shopping experiences for Android users, he said.