Google Pay is the technology giant’s next focus platform for expanding services that are shaped for specific needs of Indian users and businesses. At its Google for India conference held earlier today, the company made multiple announcements specific to the Google Pay platform, which revolve around having users and businesses do more than just make and receive payments through the platform’s UPI payment interface. These include creating bespoke brand presence on Google Pay, offering entry level jobs, enabling easier digital payments for small businesses and increasing the safety of transacting online.
Beginning with the newly introduced Google Spot platform, Google sees it not only as a tool for online businesses, but as one that can help more small and offline businesses have an online presence. With Spot, businesses of varying sizes can create a customised experience and integrate it directly into the Google Pay platform. Ambarish Kenghe, director of product management at Google Pay stated at the conference today that Spots works with Javascript and HTML, using which companies and businesses can, for instance, provide an in-app menu of services provided by it, along with a chat-like interface that logs transactions for users, and also allows them to make payments against purchases.
With Spots, Google aims to reach out to small and medium businesses for whom building a standalone app does not offer enough benefits to scale. For these businesses, Google Pay is a platform with sizeable user traffic — 67 million MAUs (monthly active users) and $110 billion annualised transaction value. Along with the Spots initiative within the Google Pay app, Google also announced Spot Cards, which are NFC-enabled and feature QR codes, which can be directly accessed by customers to interact with a business’ custom experience, created as a Spot on Google Pay. As Google announced, big platforms such as UrbanClap, MakeMyTrip and Eat.Fit have already introduced their own Spots on Google Pay.
Promoting a business is not where Google Spot’s scope ends. Beginning now, Google Pay will also offers Jobs — a new segment that presents entry-level employment as Spots within the app. Using the Jobs platform, Google says that prospective individuals can prepare and apply for employment that suits their needs. Using the platform, users can create their own employment profile, extract it as a single-page profile to present as curriculum vitae, and directly apply to employers that join the Google Pay platform. Right now, Google has partnered with services such as HealthKart in retail, FabHotels in hospitality, Zomato in on-demand services and more to kick start the Jobs platform on Google Spot.
Going further, Google is joining the Skill India initiative by partnering with National Skills Development Corporation. Under this, Google states that students will be able to create their own profile, and apply for suitable employment. The platform stands independently of the job search options presently offered through the Google Search platform, and will use machine learning to offer personalised employment opportunities for interested individuals. As Caesar Sengupta, vice president of Google’s Next Billion Users initiative stated, “Jobs makes it easy for (students) to apply, schedule interviews and engage directly with potential employers.”
Other initiatives linked with Google Pay announced today include tokenised cards with an emphasis on safety of storing card data on the app (read more here), and a new Google Pay for Business initiative, which will help businesses streamline processes such as paperwork and verification to enable digital payments. As Google stated, Google Pay saw exponential growth of 3x within one year, and with the new Spot platform, the company will hope to see a continued growth as the user base transcends the first wave of users residing in tier I cities.
Comments
0 comment