Tez to take India closer to digital transformation: Google's Sundar Pichai

The payment app allows users, free of charge, to make small or big payments straight from their bank accounts

A day after Google launched its new digital payment app "Tez" in India, the company's Indian-born CEO Sundar Pichai on Tuesday tweeted it will help India move closer to digital transformation.

"We hope that the launch of @TezByGoogle will help take India one step closer to your vision of @_DigitalIndia," Pichai tweeted.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley who launched the app here had said the idea of "Tez" was discussed by Pichai in January, just after demonetisation.

"Google saw a great potential in Indian economy and businesses," Jaitley said, adding that Google's new digital payments app over the next few months was likely to make major advances in digital transaction volumes.

Built on the Indian government-supported Unified Payments Interface (UPI), Tez allows users, free of charge, to make small or big payments straight from their bank accounts.

The app was built for India, working on the vast majority of the country's smartphones and available in English and seven Indian languages (Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu).

The app works in partnership with four Banks — Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and State Bank of India — to facilitate the processing of payments across over 50 UPI-enabled banks.

According to D D Mishra, Research Director, Gartner, Tez provides promising features which are in-line with the requirements.

"It is too early to say whether it can be a game changer as evolution in this business is going to continue, but yes it has the capabilities to bring some disruption as of now," Mishra said in a statement.

Moreover, Google's information about an individual's preferences can play a good role in enabling the business to know their preferences and provide offers with interesting options.

"The mobile wallet industry too is evolving and we are at an interesting stage in this competition. Eventually, UPI payments will have an upper hand if it continues to remain free and provide better security, convenience and add more Value Added Services," Mishra informed.