Google Tez to reportedly be rebranded and brought under Google Pay & bring UPI payments to Play Store

After making a big bang entry into the Indian payments space with Tez, Google is close to renaming the service as Pay and consolidating it under the global payment umbrella of Google Pay, two people in the know of the matter said. The company has already been on a rebranding track in different markets across Asia in order to avoid any confusion.

This could potentially open the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) as a mode of payment for app purchases on Google Play Store, which experts say is a huge use case waiting to be tapped. Google could opt for an ‘invoke flow’ process once UPI payment option is added to the Play Store. In essence, once a user chooses the UPI option, they will be notified by the UPI app on their phone about a payment request. The user will have to open the app, and authorize the transaction.Back in January, Pali Bhat, vice-president of product management for payments at Google, had said that Google would eventually bring both Google Wallet and Android Pay under the Google Pay umbrella for easier, simpler and safer usage.

Since its launch last year, Google Tez has steadily grown. It has garnered over 50 million downloads, and boasts over 13.5 million monthly active users who have conducted over 250 million transactions. The payment platform works with over 70 banks including SBI, HDFC Bank, ICICI, and Axis to name a few.

India has been one of the largest markets in terms of app downloads for Google, primarily due to the dominance of Android smartphones in India and the falling mobile Internet tariffs. However, the rate of revenue growth hasn't kept the same pace. India ranked 29th in terms of revenue generated from sale of mobile apps on Android and iOS as of April this year, according to app market data and insights company App Annie.
Tez, launched by the then finance minister Arun Jaitley in September last year, has managed to catch the imagination of the Indian public, having already crossed more than 50 million downloads.