Google expected to launch new payment product in India (GOOGL)

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On September 18, Google is expected to introduce a localized digital payment application to advance its offerings in India’s rapidly evolving payments industry, according to news site The Ken.

The new product, which is being referred to as Google Tez (Hindi for fast), is expected to be a comprehensive application that will likely offer a number of payment options through partnerships with banks, United Payment Interface (UPI), and mobile wallets, such as Paytm and Mobikwik, according to Quartz.

The tech company will be entering a market that has been inundated with competitors. In November, India removed the 500 and 1,000 rupee notes, representing 86% of the country’s currency, from circulation. This immediately forced consumers to look for alternative ways to pay for goods, with many turning to digital payments. Since then, a number of companies — including Mastercard, Visa, Amazon, Whatsapp, and Samsung — have shown interest in taking advantage of these changing consumer habits by introducing new payment products.

By partnering with established companies in the space, and leveraging the large number of citizens with access to smartphones, Google Tez could become a popular app among consumers. 

• UPI and Paytm have both seen tremendous growth post-demonetization, and have become two of the top players in India's payments market. Right before demonetization, UPI, which allows users to send peer-to-peer (P2P) payments across participating banks, was seeing roughly $15 million monthly in payments volume via its interface. Just one month later, though, this figure jumped to $106 million; by March, it reached $359 million. And Paytm, India's leading mobile wallet, saw immediate jumps in usage and adoption — the firm added 20 million users in the first month after demonetization, and more than 50 million by February, surpassing 200 million and helping the company reach 1 billion transactions in 2016. 
• India's smartphone population bodes well for Google Tez adoption. In 2016, India had a smartphone user base of roughly 300 million, which should give Google the opportunity to reach a large segment of the public with its mobile payment offering. And considering that India's population exceeds 1 billion, there also appears to be a growth opportunity to reach even more consumers. 

European and North American countries with advanced economies often serve as bellwethers for the payments industry when it comes to introducing new and disruptive technologies.

However, some of the greatest examples of digital payments disruption can be found in developing nations. In some cases, these countries not only adopt certain aspects of a digital payments ecosystem faster, but they also do so with more efficiency than their Western counterparts.

The fact that digital disruption in these regions can be complex and varied, makes it difficult for the industry to devise effective strategies for international expansion — but understanding the drivers of this disruption can significantly aid payments companies. 

BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on payments disruption that:

• Identifies the biggest drivers that are upending the payments industries in India, East Africa, Latin America, and Australia. 
• Discusses what pain points digital payment services are solving. 
• Details what specific technologies and services are being introduced that consumers are embracing, which can be leveraged by companies in these regions that are ripe for disruption.
• Assesses how leaders in the space can leverage these trends to either improve their capabilities or to identify which markets may be ripe for disruption and worth exploring.
• And much more

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