Google Pay plans to get neighbourhood stores online, pilots merchant payments

Search engine giant Google is planning to get neighbourhood stores to join its payment platform Google pay. The firm has been piloting Google Pay merchant mode in Bengaluru and Delhi to bring more small merchants online.

The mode will enable small merchants to receive digital payments and help them communicate with their customers.

According to Caesar Sengupta, vice-president of Google’s Next Billion Users and Payments, Google has already been working on the project and in coming months it will add more stores and small merchants on its platform. Google will also make small merchant traceable through Google map.

It plans to execute things in phases. The search engine behemoth has joined hands with Pine Labs, which considered one of the largest firms to deploy point-of-sales (PoS) terminals. With the help of PoS, Google will bring offline payments to major branded retail outlets in the first phase.

Presently, 1.2 million Indian local businesses are on Google Pay. Google is also working on developing an alternative to printed QR code-based payment.

"We can create a better technology and an even better experience for the user,” Sengupta was quoted as saying by ET.

On Aug 28, the company announced the rebranding of Google Tez as Google Pay.

Almost a year old Google Pay claims use by over 22 million people and businesses to make over 750 million transactions that are collectively worth over $30 billion annually.

In December 2017, it accounted for 52 per cent of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions in India.

Currently, Google Pay is largely being used for peer to peer fund transfer and paying utility bills. Soon it will allow its users to shop on BookMyShow, Big Bazaar, e-ZON and FBB on its platform.

Recently, it crossed 50 million downloads on play store.

In digital payment segment, Google Pay mainly competes with Paytm and PhonePe in India. Given its big pocket, far reach and ambitious plan, Google Pay will give a tough fight to its competitors in coming months.