Google has launched a brand new digital payment app in India called Tez for online and offline transactions. Tez, which is a Hindi name identifies the solutions as an Indian exclusive, and will offer its services via Unified Payments Interface (UPI), a government supported platform for retail payments in the world’s second populous country.
Tez may be seen as Google’s attempt to have a share in the digital payments, and India is an interesting country owing to its sheer population that is continuously adopting digital payments and ecommerce. Users will be able to make payments without extra costs from their bank accounts. It should also be noted that the product is not a digital wallet that needs to be refilled. Rather, Tez will work with a couple of popular Indian banks, meaning money will be held in a customer’s bank account.
As already mentioned, the app is targeted for Indians and is available in a couple of other popular Indian languages.
It has been mentioned that a fair share of Indian banks are not UPI-enabled to facilitate payments. This means that only a handful of them will be embrace Tez as the solution grows.
Its offerings sound good, at least in theory. For instance, transactions are made instantly with a neat feature called Cash Mode. Simply put, two people using the app need to press the cash mode button to initiate secure transactions in seconds. The beauty of this feature is that people do not need to exchange private details. Google says that Cash Mode utilizes Audio QR (AQR) technology to pair close handhelds.
Another interesting feature is that users can pay anyone once the app has synced saved contacts. Contacts with Tez can receive or send funds without the hassle of punching in bank accounts. Here is another nice addition; a user who has not installed Tez, but has a bank account or a UPI ID can receive funds. For both scenarios, Tez groups transaction histories into conversations. This makes follow ups easy. For instance, we all know how tedious it is to locate an MPESA transaction via text because the platform bunches all MPESA messages together. Not that I’m complaining, but we all deserve some form of organization especially to the demographic that revises their transactions.
Lastly, Tez is equipped with security measures and encryptions, so transaction cannot be intercepted by intruders. Also, the app uses machine learning to detect fraudulent transactions.
Whether Tez will convince Indians to drop existing digital payment solutions or otherwise is something only the future can tell.
The app is available for Android and iOS, and the search giant plans to release it to other market in coming days.
