Check out Tez, a simple and secure payments app by Google. Make your first payment and we both get ₹51! https://g.co/tez/EE8z3
Google Tez payment app: Features, how to use, make payments
Written by Shruti Dhapola | New Delhi |
6-7 minutes
Google Tez, a new digital payments app based on NPCI’s UPI platform, was launched in India on Monday. Google’s vice-president for Next Billion Users, Caesar Sengupta, launched the app at an event in New Delhi in the presence of Finance Minister Arun Jaitely. Google’s Tez app will be made available for Android and iOS users. Unlike a Paytm or MobiKwik, Tez is neither a mobile wallet nor a modified version of Android Pay. It is built on UPI and allows for payments directly via bank accounts, thanks to the UPI platform.
“Google Tez app is designed for India and made in India. It supports seven Indian languages and more will be on the way. Our focus with this is on digital payments,” explained Sengupta. He also announced that Google will partner with companies like Nokia (HMD Global), Micromax, Lava, Panasonic and Xolo for pre-loading the Google Tez app on upcoming smartphones from these brands.
“January was when discussions first started around this app with Google with Sundar Pichai, Caesar Sengupta, and Rajan Anandan. The Tez app is one of the most simple forms of monetary transactions. It represents a major advance in the direction of a cashless economy and it is good to see that Google has achieved in eight to nine months what they had planned with the launch of the Tez app,” said Finance Minister Arun Jaitley at the event. He also wished to see the digital transaction economy extend to feature phones as well in the future.
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Google’s Tez app will remind users of other UPI-based payments app. It has a chat-based UI, and a user will require their Gmail account as well as a working mobile number in order to carry out transactions. Google says it has partnered with HDFC, ICICI, Axis and SBI bank to power the payments service in the app. This doesn’t mean the app is limited to just these four banks, all 55 banks which support UPI can be linked to the Google Tez account. But these four banks are the payment service providers in case of Tez, since UPI rules give this power only to authorised banks.
Interestingly, Google Tez has not included Aadhaar verification for payments, unlike BHIM, the other big UPI payments app. “Adding an option for payment by Aadhaar is not mandatory in the UPI rules yet. There is a lot of lack of clarity around this, and we are still exploring the implementation of this with our legal teams, etc,” explained Caesar Sengupta, though the app’s terms and services do mention the Aadhaar verification angle. This, Sengupta says, has been added to keep in mind any future changes to the features of Tez app.
Google is touting Tez as a lite and secure app. The app is only 7MB in size and in order to carry out transactions, a user will require a UPI PIN. As Google’s executives explained, the UPI Pin is something mandated by the NPCI rules for implementing the platform into a new app. Google’s Diana Layfield, who is VP of Finance and Commerce for Next Billion Users, explained that the product will have a fraud engine with spam detection in addition to a 24×7 customer care for users.
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Layfield also explained Tez won’t be limited to just customers exchanging money with their friends and family. The company plans to bring in business partners and is working with Domino’s Pizza, Jet Airways, RedBus, PayU, BillDesk, PVR cinemas, Shopify, etc to let users directly connect with businesses on the app. However, customers will have the option of choosing which business they wish to interact with, and can also block a business.
In case of some businesses like PVR etc, users will be able to make payments directly via the Tez app. The business in turn can give users offers, send discount coupons, etc.For example, if a user wishes to make payments on PVR website via Tez, they can choose that option and enter their Tez UPI id. After that a request appears on the user’s Tez app and they just have to enter the UPI Pin to make the payment. Or they can choose to decline the request as well.
Google says Tez will soon support credit cards, debit card storage and addition of e-wallets as well. However, for now NFC payments are not a part of the app. Sengupta said the reason Google skipped this was because not too many phones in India support the feature. “Also not all POS (point of sale) terminals in India have NFC facility,” he said.
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Tez also brings in another feature, which is the option of sharing money directly with someone without sharing UPI ID, mobile number, bank details. As Diana Layfield explained during the demo of the product, this requires that both phones be in close proximity. Google calls this the ‘Cash Mode’ claiming is as simple as handing over cash. When the Cash mode is switched on, the app relies on Audio QR for sharing money between the two devices; one user has to toggle the pay option, the other has to switch on the receive option. Users don’t have to share the number in this case, and once the cash is shared, both receive an alert about the transaction.
Google Tez packs a host of features, some of which are not really new. UPI is something that gets another big push with the entry of this app, though of course, we already have BHIM for this and even most banking apps now support UPI on their own. As pointed out before, Tez is by no means an Android Pay substitute or a mobile wallet app. Now whether this consumer product proves to be a hit in the already-crowded mobile payemtns space is something that remains to be seen.
Check out Tez, a simple and secure payments app by Google. Make your first payment and we both get ₹51! https://g.co/tez/EE8z3
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