NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Google is going big into Asia’s mobile payment scene.

The tech giant has launched a new mobile money app called Tez in India — a country with a smartphone user base of over 300 million, which has been named the world’s fastest growing smartphone market.

“Tez” which means fast in Hindi, lets users link up their bank accounts to their phones, allowing them to use the app to pay merchants in stores, and instantly transfer money to friends.

Google’s app isn’t just another of the many mobile payment apps out there. To make Tez count, Google made sure it worked with India’s national Unified Payments Interface (UPI), a payment system backed by the government and 19 major banks in the country.

Photo courtesy of Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion.