Google Tez is now Google Pay

Google has rebranded its payment app Google Tez to Google Pay to tap into the growing Indian digital payment space. The tech giant has also partnered with private banks to facilitate instant disbursement of pre-approved loans to user’s account.

Tez, built over the UPI interface, was launched in India in September 2017. Since its launch, Tez has seen 55 million downloads, 22 million active users, 750 million transactions with annual run rate of with $30 billion.

Speaking at the 4th edition of Google for India event here on Tuesday, Caeser Sengupta, General Manager, Google Payments, said the re-branding gives the payment service better scope, take the product global and import global features in India.

For instance, in the US, users can attach money through emails. Sengupta said the re-branding facilitates bringing of these services to India. Also since Tez is built for the Indian market, features can be replicated in the other regions. “Many countries like India that are on their journey of digital transformation, where we could use Tez,” Sengupta added.

Sengupta said, “There are many countries that have approached us where they either have UPI-like system or in partnership other players.”

Google Pay is operational in 18 countries across the world.

Loan disbursement

In addition to the payment service, Google Pay in India will also enable seamless disbursement of loans through its app. If a user has pre-approved loans from a bank that Google Pay has partnered with, they can use the app to mention the amount they want to borrow and input time period it will take to repay. Then, the the amount will be credited to the user's account.

The company has partnered with four banks HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, ICICI Bank and Federal Bank and is also actively in talks with different banking partners for the same. However, there is no plan of partnering with non-banking entities, he added.

Google Pay is expanding its operations to physical stores such as BigBazaar and smaller merchants such as kirana stores. Google Pay will be available in 15,000 big brand shops by Diwali. Sengupta said to bring smaller merchants, they will be run a pilot in Bengaluru and Delhi to understand what which features will work for them better before expanding it in phases in India.