Back in September 2017, Google brought its UPI-based payment serviced dubbed Google Pay in India. If you’ve been using it since its initial launch, then you already know that it used to go by the name ‘Tez’ (which is Hindi for Speed). Since its initial release, the search engine giant has rolled out new features to its payment app. Users can now even recharge their prepaid and postpaid connections while also paying various bills such as electricity and broadband.
Well, it looks like Google is now bringing a major functionality to its UPI payment service. We’re talking about contactless payments using NFC.
Google Pay users in India will soon be able to do contactless payments using NFC!
The good folks over at Android Police have managed to spot the coming feature in the Indian support page of Google Pay. With contactless payment support, users will soon be able to tap their phones on the POS or Point of Service terminals. The feature would work just like any other NFC-based payment service. You would have to tap your phone on the POS machine and then use your secure pin code to make the transaction.
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Since this contactless payment method is based on UPI, you don’t need to add credit or debit cards to enjoy the contactless service. This would be a useful addition to the Google Pay ecosystem as more smartphone owners will be able to use the facility. Furthermore, UPI is one of the most used digital payment solutions in the country. It allows users to pay others by simply using a unique VPA address.
All of these combined could make Google Pay a go-to payment app for many smartphone users. Of course, you would need an NFC-capable smartphone to use the feature whenever it rolls out. The support page notifies that devices running the developer version of Android will not be able to use the feature. This also includes the devices that are rooted, has their bootloader unlocked, and are not approved by Google.
Support to be limited initially
Another crucial piece of information that the support page mentions is the fact that the contactless payment is currently compatible with Pine Lab terminals only. For those who’re unaware, Pine Labs terminals are available at many supermarkets, fuel stations, restaurants, and various other outlets across the entire country. Hopefully, Google will add support to more terminals down the road.
At the time of writing this, Samsung is the only company that is offering a contactless payment service. Yes! we’re talking about Samsung Pay. It, on the other hand, relies on credit and debit cards and does not use UPI for NFC-based payments.
