Google Pay, which was launched in India as UPI-based payment app Tez in September 2017, has grown its monthly user base from 14 million in March 2018 to 45 million this month, fuelled by the rise in UPI transactions. Transactions on Google Pay hit $81 billion in March 2019 at an annualised run-rate level.
“Google Pay is accepted at over 2,000 online merchants, including use cases such as food delivery, travel, movie/event tickets and even trading and investments, and has created an impact beyond metros. It is used across three lakh cities, towns and villages in India, with two out of every three transactions from beyond the top seven metros. UPI transaction volumes in the country have outpaced all other forms of digital payments, including wallets, mobile banking (NEFT, RTGS, IMPS) and cards (debit and credit cards). UPI transactions have grown 40 times from 17 million in August 2017 to 674 million today,” said Ambarish Kenghe, Director, Product Management, Google Pay, India.
Non-Google Pay users
Beyond popular use cases such as bill payment and mobile recharge, users can also make payments to non-users of Google Pay through the external payments feature, which allows money transfer with a bank account number and IFSC code instead of a mobile number, said Kenghe.
Google Pay has partnered with Pine Labs and Innoviti to enable UPI payments across a wide footprint of point-of-sale (PoS) terminals spanning two lakh stores in more than 3,500 cities and towns.
Google Pay has also collaborated with IRCTC to enable users to search, browse, book, confirm or cancel train tickets at zero transaction fees.