Google’s digital payment app in India, Tez, might get absorbed into its global payment gateway Google Pay. With that, the UPI payment process would be an additional option for app purchases on the Play Store. Without directly confirming this development, a spokesperson for Google has indicated that the company has always held that all its payments modules will be eventually globally integrated.
While Google has launched different payment services in Asia with a localized flavour, like Tez in India, it is now in the process of consolidating these to avoid any kind of confusion and they would all be called Google Pay.
Google Tez has done well for itself and is ranked the largest tapping on the UPI payment system after Paytm and PhonePe (run by Flipkart). Tez has not been facing any issues unlike WhatsApp in the country. Being a standalone app, there is a two-stage authentication. WhatsApp is still battling with this factor with the authorities.
Tez boasts of 50 million downloads so far and sees an equal number of transactions each month. The payment service has enlisted four major banks, State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and HDFC Bank.
Observers point out that the opening up of the UPI mode of payment within Play Store is a huge untapped business in the payment sphere. The Indian Android user base is already contributing a large number of downloads of apps from its Play Store, though the same cannot be said about the revenue generated out of these downloads. India ranks just 29th in the global list of countries based on revenues generated from these.
The digital wallets and payments space is bound to gain further traction as WhatsApp sorts out its issues with the government (RBI). With a captive user base of over 200 million, WhatsApp will give the others a run for their money, well literally.