PFs Helping Google Build Acceptance of its Mobile Payments Solution in India

When you hear about digital payments in India, you often hear about leading payment facilitator Paytm.

But Paytm is not the only PF bringing electronic payments to businesses in India.

Google’s announcement on Monday that it is entering India’s burgeoning mobile payments market with its own offering, Tez, mentioned large retail partners that would be accepting the service, including Dominos and DishTV.

But the tech giant revealed that it is also relying on help from payment facilitators to expand acceptance in the region. The company said that it would be working with e-commerce providers such as Shopify, as well as online payments providers and PFs including PayU and BillDesk, to bring on hundreds of the country’s online merchants.

PayU is headquartered in the Netherlands, and BillDesk is based in India.

Google also announced its Tez for Business program, which will enable merchants to accept the payments on their web sites and create their own channels within the Tez app.

Companies in India are already working to capitalize on the opportunity coming from the Indian government’s support for and encouragement of digital payments in the predominantly cash-based society.

Paytm has ratcheted up efforts to onboard merchants and users of its mobile app this year, and mobile payments provider Mobikwik announced a new round of funding to help grow its business this summer.

Google bills Tez as a payment method that bridges the gap between digital payments and Indians’ traditional preference for cash.

“To make digital payments truly work for India, we need a product that can compete with cash. It needs to be simple, affordable, and work everywhere and for everyone,” the company said in a blog post.

To that end, one of the unique aspects of Google’s Tez is its “Cash Mode,” which it said allows users to exchange money with other Tez users nearby without also exchanging personal information. It relies on what the company called Audio QR technology, which uses sound to send and receive payments between phones.