Google will soon launch a mobile payment service in India called 'Tez'

Google plans to soon launch a new localized mobile payment service in India, which will be called ‘Tez’. Tez, which means fast in Hindi, will include support for the government-backed Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and other consumer payment services including Paytm and MobiKwik.

Two years ago, the company had launched its payment app Android Pay in the United States. Google, Facebook and WhatsApp were already in talks with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to provide UPI-enabled payment on their platforms. TechCrunch pointed out that this would be a big deal because Google hasn’t made a big push into payments outside of the United States and, while it has a strong consumer presence in India, revenue from the country is nothing to write home about.

According to a blog website WABetaInfo, Whatsapp is getting close to integrate bank-to-bank payments on its platform. The feature “Whatsapp Payments: the immediate bank-to-bank transfer with UPI” will be available in the new version '2.17.295' through the Google Play Beta Programme. However, the official "WhatsApp Payments" section for Android is still being worked upon.

The UPI, which facilitates instant fund transfer between two bank accounts on the mobile platform, was launched by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and regulated by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).