Google Pay Goes Beyond UPI With Support For Credit Cards, Debit Cards

For as long as Google Pay or Google Tez has existed in India, it has been a UPI payments app — even if Google Pay is turning into a different beast now. And now Google is looking to go beyond the unified payments interface and add support for bank credit card and debit cards in India, just like it does in the US and some other western markets.

Google has now made it easier for customers to pay for goods and services even if they don’t have a UPI ID or are using international credit cards in India. To enable credit and debit card support, Google is using a tokenisation system, which not only helps in keeping credit and debit card data safe and secure but also enables seamless payments for online payments using cards.

“We’re also making payments available to debit and credit cardholders through ‘tokenized’ cards — a secure way of paying for things using a digital token on your phone rather than your actual card number.”

Google Pay For Cards In India

Credit and debit card support on Google Pay will be rolling out in the next few weeks with Visa cards for HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Standard Chartered. Google also said that it would support Mastercard and Rupay cards in the coming months, with more banks also coming soon.

With tokenization, customers can use any online service such as Dunzo, BigBasket, Swiggy or Zomato, pay for their orders using their debit cards and credit cards via the Google Pay app. The token is generated on device and services and retail outlets do not get the credit card number and other details, which keeps them safe in case of a hack, leak or a data breach.

Thanks to the token system, the service will only see a unique token generated by Google Pay for each transaction. This means customers don’t have to have the card details saved with the service they use. The token also contains the metadata to track the transaction in case of failures or returns.

Google also automates the OTP input to make card payments more seamless than they are currently. So there are no redirects involved, which are often a failure point in the online payments chain.

The tokenized cards system may be familiar to anyone who has used or heard about the Apple Card. Apple uses a similar tokenization approach to authenticate and secure transactions.