Google Pay is an innovative financial solution and marks the search giant’s foray into fintech. With a digital wallet, seamless online payments, in-application, and contactless purchases on mobile phones, the service packs a spectacular punch when it comes to empowering users and giving them total control of their finances, with an intuitive, easy-to-use interface coming to their aid.
It empowers its clients to make payments with Android and ios phones, tablets, or watches. It also supports coupons, tickets, ID cards, vehicle keys, event tickets, film tickets, public transportation tickets, store cards, health records, and loyalty cards.
The payment application aims to be an all-inclusive resource for all your financial management needs, from contactless payments to planning budgets, paying restaurant bills, availing of cash-back offers, and much more.
Features of Google Pay
The essential features of Google Pay are as follows:
- Acts as a Digital Wallet: Google Pay allows you to store not only your debit and credit card details but also your gift vouchers, financial balances, coupons, campus IDs, film tickets, and boarding passes, all in one place.
An incredible advantage of Google Pay e-wallets is that you can avoid the problem of carrying the cards or tickets in your physical wallet and misplacing them.
Google Pay utilizes Near Field Communication (NFC) innovation or tap-to-pay to send your card data at any contactless payment terminal. You can use it for making in-application and online purchases.
- Peer-to-Peer Payments: Google Pay P2P Payment service permits you to receive to and from other Google Pay users. The cash involved gets deposited into your bank accounts, thus nullifying any chances of fraud. In addition, you can transfer money from your bank account or pay from your Google Pay balance.
You can make groups where individuals can send and demand cash from one another or split a bill or rent among the members. It tracks whether the members have or have not made the payments and lets you tap a button to remind them.
Google Pay works in partnership with global money transfer organizations, like Western Union and Wise, to help worldwide cash transfers. India is one of the greatest business markets for the app.
- Enhanced Security: Google Pay utilizes a tokenization system to give an extra layer of protection from false transactions. The application does not reveal your credit or debit card numbers. Your information is encrypted to give security at whatever point you pay on the web.
Google Pay also alerts the user when cash is sent to someone outside your contact. It has a ‘Find My Device’ service that helps you lock your mobile, in case of theft or loss.
- Cash-back Offers: Google pay provides cash-back offers to its regular users. Cash-backs are real money that gets added to your Google Pay account balance. The “Explore” tab in the application helps you to find cash-back offers.
To use any of the offers, tap ‘activate’ and guarantee it by paying with a connected debit or credit card. You can redeem loyalty points from various stores by paying using the Google Pay links.
- Privacy Control Setup: Google pay ensures privacy for your online presence. You can personalize your experience by turning on the ‘personalize’ tab on the app.
It will provide you with personalized offers with the help of google algorithms. Google also promises not to share your data with any third parties.
- Budgeting Tools: Google Pay allows you to track your spending. The ‘Insights’ tab will show you reports of your spending, saving, and forthcoming bills. It works by looking through your exchanges.
If you share your Gmail and Google Photos accounts, Google Pay will consequently examine receipts in both of them. As with Google Photos, it utilizes Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to peruse receipts and link them with the transaction.
It works with bank accounts, and debit and credit cards. A downside of Google Pay is that it lacks budgeting tools like those provided by apps like Mint or Simplifi. Google Pay shows the data and may not assist with cutting costs in contrast with other applications committed to the same.
- Fees: Google Pay does not charge any money for transactions. You can download it free from the app store or play store. But, it charges a minimal amount of 1.5% as the fee for debit card transactions.
Since debit card transactions are instant, there will be a fee whereas there are no charges for bank account transfers as it takes 1-3 business days.
- Other Features: Google Pay is planning to launch its new mobile-first bank account called Plex. Google has teamed up with 11 banks and credit unions in the U.S. to offer Plex accounts in Google Pay.
With Plex, you can access all your banking needs using your mobile phone. Google Pay also provides rewards on reference. If someone makes a transaction based on your reference, you and that person will get reward points added to your account.
Cons of Google Pay
A major drawback is that it is not accepted by all the banks in the world. Every store does not have the technology to accept Google Pay transactions, which makes it less handy. Inter-app transactions to other payment apps are not possible.
Google Pay charges a 1.5% fee for debit card transactions. This can be a downside for Google Pay users as other P2P apps such as Venmo don’t have fees for debit card transactions.
Another drawback of the app is the tedious verification processes during the initial setup. Moreover, no transactions are possible at times of faint internet connectivity.
Conclusion
Google Pay is an innovation that enables easy financial transactions. Its users get the advantage of having everything under one umbrella. It is an ambitious endeavor with many features to assist in dealing with your cash.
Google Pay is a decent choice if you wish to have mobile payments, cards, or cash in a single application. There are a few elements that are lackluster when contrasted with other independent applications for budgeting, cash-back offers, and P2P payment administrations. We hope to see new updates and more nations covered under their global cash transfer portfolio with timely updates.
