There are 300 million smartphone users in India, and phones with NFC are still relatively rare and expensive, with many users instead favoring entry-level and mid-tier devices. Tez is a step beyond Android Pay, because it allows users to link payment apps from Indian banks — it works with all of the country’s 55 banks on India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI). UPI is a system that allows numerous bank accounts to be linked into one mobile app, and enables secure peer-to-peer payment. According to Bloomberg, digital transactions have surged after the Indian Government banned high-value cash notes late last year.
Tez also facilitates bank-to-bank payments and is protected by Tez Shield, a data security platform from Google that detects fraud and protects user identity. Tez behaves like a chat app, using your contact list as a way to keep transaction history organized. People or businesses you’ve sent or received cash from grouped together “like a conversation,” Google says.
The company says small businesses can also use the app to accept payments into their bank accounts, and it also accepts payments from mobile sites with “just a few taps.” Tez is available on both Android and iOS, and Google plans to release the app in other emerging countries including Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand.
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