Considering the increasing demand of digital payment gateways in India, Google is now gearing up to introduce its Android Pay in the Indian market. The payment gateway will be backed with government’s Unified Payments Interface just like other companies including Stripe and WhatsApp that are also looking to enter the respective segment.
Google has already started testing the UPI on its Android Pay platform and is evaluating the compatibility of the platform through UPI. Even a spokesperson at Stripe confirmed that Stripe, which is available in more than 100 countries to accept different sorts of digital payments is in initial talks with India to enter the market through UPI system.
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According to AP Hota, managing director of National Payments Corporation of India that developed UPI confirmed that WhatsApp had shown interest in launching its payment gateway in India with UPI’s support. Dilip Asbe, who is the chief operating officer at NPCI, told that three different global companies have shown their interest in past few months to work with UPI. But, declined to share any more information due to nondisclosure agreements signed with the companies.
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He said, “Most of the companies have identified UPI as a seamless payment option with the orientation towards mobile platform. If these companies decide to work with the UPI system then pushing users from 50 million to 100 million will be much easier in coming years. We expect that these companies will roll out their UPI-based payment gateways this year.”
Google also confirmed that it will be bringing a payment API (application programming interface) that will be open up all Android smartphones to online payments, which will be suitable for India’s cashless drive. Google Android Pay was first introduced in the US in 2015 and since then the platform has received a significant response from the users. The gateway is already present in countries like UK, Russia, Australia, Singapore, and Japan. For entering the mentioned countries, the company has partnered with multiple banks to enable easy, quick, and contactless transactions through Android Pay.
The UPI system developed by Indian government links various bank accounts to initiate quick and seamless contactless transactions. According to reports, there were 6.9 million transactions conducted through UPI system in April. This is the right time for digital payment companies to enter the market with UPI system as there is no segment leader yet.
Apart from Android Pay, platforms like Truecaller and Samsung Pay went live with UPI a few days back. In addition, Hike is also gearing up to launch its payment system through UPI so in this condition, there are multiple platforms that have entered or coming up in the market and it will be interesting to see which platform gains the competitive lead.
