Google Tez has become the latest UPI-based payments app in the country, propelling the Internet search giant into the league of companies eyeing a piece of India’s digital payments pie. The new Google Tez Payment App can be used to pay for movie tickets, utility bills, and make other transactions online. Honorable Finance Minister of India, Arun Jaitley has unveiled the Google Tez Payment App on Monday in an event held at New Delhi. Google’s own payment app works on both smartphone and desktop. Tez means fast in Hindi, which the company said was one of the selling points of its new app. Google’s rivals such as Amazon and Facebook are also making efforts to tap the country’s digital payments market.
Google Tez Payment App is a standalone payments app, available on Android and iOS, and is powered by UPI, a payments protocol built by government-backed organization NPCI. The app weighs just 7MB on Android and works with the vast majority of Android smartphones in the country,” Caesar Sengupta, the head of Google’s Next Billion program said onstage at the event. The app even works on Android KitKat-powered smartphones, Sengupta said. iPhone users — going as back as iPhone 4s — will be able to use Tez app as well, he added.
How Google Tez Payment App works
Google Tez is a mobile wallet based on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) platform built by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). UPI-enabled wallets permit users to transfer money without requiring the bank account details of the recipient. The UPI ID of the recipient is used as a proxy for the account number and IFSC code, thereby simplifying the process of money transfer.
How is it different from other digital wallets?
Unlike most other wallets apps, it does not require money to be stored in the app to make digital payments. Tez works as an extension of one’s bank account, which means that unused money remains in the bank earning interest. Each transaction is initiated by the sender entering his UPI pin with the additional security of existing phone locks. The app is available for download on both Android and iOS devices. This is functionally similar to the BHIM app.
Google Tez Payment App Vs Paytm
Google Tez App is quite different from other mobile wallets like Paytm and Mobkwik. Tez is more like an Apple’s wallet which would link your bank account and smartphone. It allows paying bills by directly deducting the money from your bank account instead of storing your money in the app.
Tez Digital payment App will be supported by banks that include Axis, HDFC Bank, ICICI and SBI and others that support UPI. In addition to English, Google’s new digital payment app supports all Indian Regional languages like Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu.
Tez App Transaction Daily Limit
For cash transfers, ₹1,00,000 is set as the limit in one day across all UPI apps. With Tez app, users can do 20 transfers in a single day.
How much do other mobile wallets charge a transaction fee?
For every payment worth ₹100 made by a customer to their Paytm wallet, ₹1.99 is accounted for as the transaction charge while ₹0.35 is levied as GST. The payout to the account is ultimately ₹97.66. Meanwhile, Mobikwik comes at a ‘nominal’ charge of 4% of the transfer amount (per transaction). The processing fee for PayUmoney, Oxygen, and Ola Money are 2.9%, 3% (wallet to a bank account), and 4% respectively. PhonePe offers free money transfer for all payment modes.
What are the extra benefits of using the app?
The Google Tez interface offers language support in English, Hindi, Bengali, Kannada, Tamil, Gujarati, Marathi, and Telugu. To gain greater traction among digital natives, Google has brought out an introductory offer on referrals which allows users to pocket ₹51 whenever the new user makes a transaction. A maximum of ₹9,000 can be redeemed every year. The offer is valid till April 1, 2018.
More interesting, however, is the Google Tez “Cash mode” option, which transmits “audio” using Google’s QR technology to identify the person nearby you, and lets you pay or receive money when you’re able to find that user. “It works on almost all phones sold in India,” a Google executive said at the event. The company has partnered with Axis, HDFC Bank, ICICI, and State Bank of India for backend processing. “With Cash Mode, we have made paying digitally as easy as paying via cash,” a Google executive said.
Google Tez supports various Indian languages, such as Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu with more coming soon. Google has partnered with several popular services to boost its usage. Bus ticketing service RedBus, PVR Cinemas, Domino’s Pizza, DishTV and Jet Airways are launch partners, it said on the website. The company suggests users
The company suggests users to have look out for Google Tez logo in their favorite services to see whether it is supported. The company has also introduced “Tez Scratch Cards”, and from the description it appears it will be offering customers deals and vouchers through this *feature to attract them, incentivizing use and adoption of the platform.
Google Tez Payment App offers on Transactions
For the first time you exchange money with a friend who is also using Tez app, you both receive a scratch card from the company. These scratch cards contain an unspecified amount of money in them. It could be anything from Re. 1 to Rs. 1,000. To avail these scratch cards, however, you have to ensure that you’re paying – or receiving – an amount that is either Rs. 50 or more than that. Google said at the event that it will keep this incentive program active at least until the end of the year, but the app showed the last date of the ‘offer’ to be April 1, 2018.
Google notes that a user can only avail 10 scratch cards at most in a week, and each sender-recipient pair will earn one reward each per week. You can earn a maximum of 10 rewards per week, up to a total of Rs. 9,000 per financial year. There are two types of Google Tez Scratch Cards. The blue ones are awarded to both sender and recipient, while the red ‘Lucky Sundays’ one is awarded to the sender only once per week. This red Google Tez Scratch Card is locked until the Sunday, and users will be able to scratch it for a chance to win up to Rs. 1 lakh (at the time of writing).
Also, the company has a referral program and it is giving customers the ability to invite their friends. Those who join from the invitation they received from a friend will get Rs. 51 after signing up. The friend who sent the invitation will also get Rs. 51.
What is Google Tez Payment App for Business?
The company also has a business channel on its service — called Tez for Business, a feature WhatsApp recently started testing and Paytm is working on. Business channels will help customers easily find services, the company said. These businesses can then talk to the customers and give them discounts. Customers can then easily pay for the offers they avail from within the app. If you have a business, you can sign up for the service here.
Google has got most major banks to sign up for its Tez platform, which enables businesses banking with the latter to transact using the app. Dominos, RedBus, and PVR have already joined the bandwagon in embracing Google’s latest offering. The biggest incentive to other businesses to enroll for Tez is that all payments go through to the merchant’s bank with minimal latency, and more importantly, without levying transaction fees.
Google Tez Payment App Security
On the security front, all the transactions on Google Tez app are guarded by something called Tez Shield to “detect fraud, prevent hacking, and verify identity,” the company says. “We built Tez to provide security throughout the payment process from customer to business and back.” One thing the company has done is introduce an additional PIN layout to protect any unauthorized usage. On iOS, the app supports Touch ID. A company executive said it has taken measures to prevent any business partners from spamming their users.
Google Tez’s biggest rival could be WhatsApp, which also plans to introduce support for UPI payments in its instant messaging app later this year, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said earlier. With over 200 million active users, WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app in India. Google’s services including search, Maps and Android have tremendous reach in the country as well.
Google Tez is based on UPI, which was launched just last year, could further boost its credibility and usage among Indians. UPI has already surpassed mobile wallet apps in one key area: the amount of money exchanged. A staggering sum of Rs. 41.3 billion was exchanged using UPI platform in August, compared to 27.2 billion by mobile wallet apps, according to India’s central banking institution RBI. In terms of a number of transactions, UPI stood at 16.6 million, while mobile wallet apps were at 89.7 million.
Google Tez Payment App Features
- Direct & Instant money transfer from bank to bank using UPI
- TEZ is safe and secure, Google Tez Payment App multi-layered security and 24/7 protection via TEZ shield allows users to make transactions with confidence.
- Google Tez’s Cash Mode lets you instantly send/receive payments to anyone nearby without sharing details like phone number or bank account.
- Pay through debit and credit cards on Tez
- Pay and set reminders for recurring bills such as DTH
- Download Google TEZ app from play store
- Signup using your mobile number
- Invite anyone to Install Tez App by sending them TEZ app link
- Make sure he/she download Tez using the link
- After signup, when your referral makes a payment using Google TEZ both of you will be awarded Rs 51
- The Catch here is, the reward cash will be only awarded after the first transaction.
- Using this TEZ promotional offer, a single user can earn up to Rs 9000
- This TEZ App Referral program ends on April 1, 2018