With the pandemic raging across the globe, especially in India, the fintech market has boomed like never before. Thus, companies in the sector have been coming up with new innovations much more frequently than before, and on Tuesday, Google took it one step further.
The California-based tech giant has joined forces with Western Union and Wise, both of which have integrated their services into Google Pay, to allow international money transfer for Google Pay’s US users, who will now be able to send money to Google Pay users in India and Singapore.
However, for now, India and Singapore based users cannot send money to the US.
Google had redesigned the Google Pay app in November, introducing paid promotions to the service and opening a waitlist for bank accounts being launched next with several lenders.
Google Pay users in the U.S. will be informed about the exact amount that the recipient will receive when they will send money to someone in India or Singapore. Users can choose between Wise or Western Union to move their money abroad, and Google will take a small cut of the cross-border transactions made through its app.
This partnership will mean that the Colorado-based Western Union can enable G-pay users to transfer money to people in over 200 countries, while the London-based fintech start-up Wise would extend the support in over 80 countries. While Wise makes international money transfers easier and more cost-effective, Western Union is a leader in remittances. This partnership, which will benefit all three companies, will help Google expand its presence and compete better with companies like PayPal.
According to Josh Woodward, Director of Product Management at Google, the company would be spurring its cross-border payments to feature with India and Singapore and intends to expand this worldwide by the end of the year. “As we do with a number of Google products, we will test, learn, and iterate and then start scaling,” he said.
“We’re not planning to become a bank or a remittance provider,” Woodward said. “We work with the ecosystem that already exists to build these products.”
Google’s journey in the $470-billion-rich remittance market comes even as the digital payments industry is booming, but there continues to be a drop in overall remittances. According to estimates by The World Bank, remittances into low and middle-class countries dropped by 7% to come to $508 million in 2020.
“For some, sending money back to their home countries is a regular activity and we are making it more accessible by adding it to the app that you use for your everyday money tasks. Working with Western Union and Wise, we’re now able to give those with family abroad a simple, safe, and reliable way to send money abroad,” Google wrote in a blog post.
Western Union would be offering unlimited free transfers if you send money with Google Pay until June 16, while Wise will make the first transfer free for new customers on transfers up to $500.
According to Western Union, receivers would not be required to pay any charges and would get the exact value in their local currency as chosen by the user in the U.S, while Wise said that it would charge the actual foreign exchange rate and additional transfer fees, which will vary from country to country.
