Going beyond digital: Google Pay goes offline to take on Amazon Pay, Paytm

Google showcased an innovation for its mobile payments app Google Pay on Wednesday, wherein merchants at stores can initiate payment requests by punching in a customer’s mobile number on their point-of-sale (POS) terminals.

With this the California-based firm is taking on PhonePe and Paytm in their own home ground and is also challenging its US rival Amazon.

Google also unveiled two other services through which its payments application users can book train tickets and buy gold.

“Digital payments has been a phenomenal story for India,” said Ambarish Kenghe, director, product management, Google Pay, India. “We want to address use cases that are close to our (customer’s) heart.” Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transaction volumes have outpaced all other forms of digital payments including wallets, mobile banking, and credit and debit cards. It has grown 40 times in 18 months, from 17 million transactions in August 2017 to 673 million in February 2019.