13th May 2021, Kathmandu
According to Google, the users of Google Pay in the U.S can now send the money to Google Pay users staying in India and Singapore, making its first attempt into the remittances market.
For the new initiation of these remittances, Google has partnered with Western Union and Wise. These both have integrated their services into Google Play. The director of product management at Google told “TechCrunch in an interview that the company is kickstarting its cross-border payments feature with India and Singapore. He also said that the company intends to expand this worldwide by the end of the year.”
He also said, “As we do with number of Google products , we will test, learn and iterate and then start scaling.”
When Google Pay users in the U.S. attempt to send money to the person in India and Singapore, they will be informed about the exact amount that the recipient will receive. From the Google Pay app, users also get to choose which payment provider Wise or Western Union, they wish to use and how long it would take for the recipient to receive the money.
Currently, the Remittance feature of Google Pay shows only the permission for sending the money to those in India and Singapore and not the way around. Woodward said the company chose India and Singapore to know how crucial they are in the remittances world.
Shelly Swanback, president of Western Union Product and platform, in a statement, said, “The pamdemic continues to have a devastating impact on everyone and everywhere especially in India and Latin America.This convenient medium will be really helpful for the people to continue supporting one another in these hard times as they reimagine of paying money worldwide.”