No. As I understand it, and it can change over time, Google stores your actual card. Then, when you're ready to make a transaction, they generate a one time use

No. As I understand it, and it can change over time, Google stores your actual card. Then, when you're ready to make a transaction, they generate a one time use (mastercard) credit card. It has a finite amount of value to reduce the exposure to fraud (the value is very close the amount you are about to purchase something for). That one time use card then travels the networks very much in the same way that that one time gift card for $50 does. Apple uses _network_ tokenization. It too is like a credit card proxy and each token is device specific. The magic here is that the networks are supporting this technology (although not all back end merchant accounts yet) so they recognize the ApplePay specific network token and allow it to act like a normal credit card. The token is reusable unlike the one time use cards. Lose your phone (or have it stolen) and just that token is revoked - not your card and all your other automated billing etc with it.