Google Pay, the digital payment platform from Google, will work on a compliance mechanism to meet the upcoming data localisation requirements in the country.

According to Sajith Sivanandan, Managing Director and Business Head - Google Pay, the services that it provides to individuals users and businesses will continue to be offered free of cost. “We have not worked yet on monetisation of the services,” he said.

He, however, has not indicated when it might introduce fee for the services. He said some of the services in the financial offerings earn revenues to the firm.

Sajith Sivanandan was in town to roll-out Google Pay for Business - a Google Pay app for merchants in the local market.

“It is a free and easy way for small and medium-sized businesses to adopt to digital payments quickly. Their customers will be able to pay directly at the stores using their phones or QR code,” he said.

He said the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) made a tremendous progress in the country, outpacing all other digital payment modes. It clocked over 1 billion transactions clocked in October 2019.

He said the user base of Google Pay has gone up significantly in the last 12 months. The number of monthly active users has trippled to 67 million in September 2019 as against 22 million in the same month previous year.

“About two out of three transactions on Google Pay come from beyond the seven largest cities, covering over 3,00,000 villages, towns and cities,” he said.

“Over 3,000 online merchants, including the food delivery, travel and entertainment players are on the platform,” he said.

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