Google Tez: Will it have a ‘Tez’ Future?

Will Google 'Tez' have a tezi growth?

There’s been a lot of buzz about the launch of ‘Tez’ by search engine Google. Here’s a quick breakdown by us. A week after its launch, a recent report by ET reveals Google Tez’s payment app to have 4 lakh active users in just 24 hours.

Google ‘Tez’ allows users to pay for both online and offline service, and also helps in person to person transactions. Other digital players like SoftBank-backed Paytm, MobiKwik, and Amazon Pay have been in business for quite some time.

Google promises a speedy transaction, and a clean simple design interface. It’s equipped with features like ‘Tez Shield’ and a B2B feature called ‘Tez for Business’. This allows merchants to get their business on the app and get on a direct interaction with the customers. This is useful for transactions, offers and more.

For a multi-lingual, multi-cultural country like India, Google has enough data to launch in seven different languages and cater to the Indian diversity. Partnering with banks like Axis, HDFC, ICICI and SBI, it aims to reach payments across 50 UPI-enabled banks.

Tez takes up a lesser space of 7MB. Other competitive players like Paytm, SBI Buddy and Amazon Pay take a much larger space (more than 10 times).

While inaugurating the app, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said,

"Now, the time has come with the application as simple as this that what started as compulsion becomes a matter of convenience and eventually a matter of spending habit as far as Indian people are concerned," said Jaitley.

Industry expert Arvind Singhal, Chairman, Technopark Advisors says, “Google Tez shall be competitive for the top players in the market. They have been the market leaders in the digital space and shall continue to be so,”.

As per a report by The Ken, WhatsApp would launch UPI in the next six months, as per four sources. WhatsApp has a much higher engagement among the audience, compared to all payment wallets. Presently at a rating of 3.8 on Google Playstore, the app will probably have to keep adding new features to survive the competitive ambiance.

At a time when WhatsApp announces its entry into the payments space, what strategies do you think Google needs to adopt to survive in the market?

Please share your feedback.

Excerpts from The Ken, The Economic Times, and The Business Line