Google to launch mobile payment service in India

Tech giant Google is slated to unveil a digital payment service in India next week that has been developed for the local market, according to industry sources.

In July, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) had said Google had completed the testing of its UPI payment service and was awaiting Reserve Bank of India’s approval to launch its service in the country.

Google today sent out invites for an event to be held on September 18 to “share details on the launch of a new product developed grounds up for India”.

Google VP (Next Billion Users) Caeser Sengupta will also be present at the event.

When contacted, Google responded with a gif — a cat typing really fast on an Apple laptop with a caption “Because fast is better than slow. See you Monday”.

According to reports, Google is looking at launching a payment service ‘Google Tez’ (Tez means fast in Hindi), which will include support for Unified Payments Interface (UPI) as well as mobile wallets like Paytm and MobiKwik.

Tech majors like WhatsApp and Facebook are also engaged in dialogue with the NPCI to provide UPI-enabled payment on their platforms.

UPI allows consumers to transfer money from one bank to another using a virtual address. There is no need of account number, IFSC code or MMID to carry out the transfer.