Along with global companies, including Stripe and WhatsApp, Google is fast gearing up its efforts to launch digital wallet services in India, Android Pay. The new digital wallet platform shall be linked to the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) of the government.
Accordingly, the testing phase of the UPI has begun on the Android Pay platform. As per a source person, the global company was considering the launch of Android Pay in India via UPI.

As reported in one of the leading business dailies, National Payments Corporation of India or NPCI's COO, Dilip Asbe said that of late three major global companies had approached the company for working in association with UPI. However he declined to mention the companies due to non-disclosure agreements. Further Asbe said, "They see UPI as a simple, seamless payment option with a mobile-focus, which is what these companies are interested in".

With it UPI is expected to receive a huge customer base of 50 million to 100 million users in next few years time. It is anticipated that these three global companies would start their payments platform by this year.

Google spokesperson comments "We are always looking for ways to make it easy for people to pay with their mobile devices, such as Android Pay in some countries, and looking to expand those capabilities to the next billion users.

With no established players in the digital payments space currently, the timing is right for international companies to make a foray in the field.

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