From last september, when Google launched their India-first payments app Tez, for instant money transfers, over 22 million people and businesses have used Tez to make over 750 million transactions that are collectively worth over $30 billion annually. Now the company has announced it’s rebranding the app to Google Pay and have plans for global expansion.
That means it’s unifying its global payments services with what it’s built for India. Tez is based on BHIM UPI, a government-built platform that allows for on-demand transactions between bank accounts used by individuals and businesses.
„We believe that many of the innovations and features we have pioneered with Tez will work in other countries. To take Tez beyond India, we will be unifying all of Google’s payment offerings globally. As a first step, Tez will now be called Google Pay.” says the company in a press release.
Other than the name, the app is staying the same except new services like instant loans which will be added soon.
„Sending a gift with a Happy Birthday spark, or paying a merchant directly from your bank account with no fees is as quick and easy as ever. In the coming weeks, we’ll be making Google Pay even more useful by increasing the number of places you can use it in, expanding services for merchants, and working with banks to provide instant loans to Google Pay users.”, Google noted.
Google Pay will enable users to avail of pre-approved bank loans through the app; the company says it’ll only take a few seconds to enter the desired amount, choose repayment terms, and receive the money in their bank accounts. It’s partnered with Federal, HDFC, ICICI, and Kotak Mahindra Bank to make this happen.
For people in other countries, Google Pay allows them to ditch their cards when paying for stuff in brick-and-mortar stores, as well as online transactions. In India, Tez has been about negating the need to carry cash and sharing bank account details for transferring money.
With this move, Google is hoping it’ll be able to get more users hooked to its payment services, leave their wallets and purses at home, and serve up oodles of data about what they’re buying.
The UPI platform is free for users and companies that build payment apps on top of it – so Google isn’t making money on transactions conducted through Google Pay. There are numerous other apps available to do this – including the Indian government’s own UPI app, digital wallet Paytm, and WhatsApp’s built-in system for peer-to-peer payments (but WhatsApp is facing trouble getting it off the ground). So naturally, Google’s had to work hard at getting people to use its app instead of the bevy of options out there – and it’s achieved that by allowing transactions without needing people to share bank account info, view and pay utility bills, and message other users right within the app.
To make money, it’ll likely harvest and sell data about consumer behavior to advertisers, and upsell certain services to businesses who want to interact with customers. To that end, „it’s testing a dedicated merchant experience that will allow small businesses to not only receive digital payments, but also make it easier to communicate offers and news to customers, and list themselves on Google Search and Maps”, according to thepaypers.com.
The company said it already has 1.2 million small businesses on its platform, and it’s now trialing its merchant experience with a small number of them in New Delhi and Bangalore.
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„So many people are coming here to Bucharest, people that I see and interact on linkedin and now I get the change to meet them in person. It was like being to the Football World Cup but this was the World Cup on linkedin in payments and open banking.”
Many more interesting quotes in the video below:
