Google Pay can launch credit facility for small traders, talks with many banks

US giant tech company Google may launch a credit feature for Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) on its payment platform Google-Pay in India. For this, the company is in talks with several top banks of India. If all goes well, this feature could start by the end of this year. With the launch of this feature, about 30 lakh verified merchants can avail instant credit facility through their Google-Pay app.

ET was quoted by an executive familiar with the matter as saying that Google is launching this feature to increase market share in the SME segment in India. India's SME segment is rapidly digitizing due to Covid-19 and Google is looking to exploit this opportunity. According to the report, this credit facility will be made available to merchants on a pre-approved basis. The facility is similar to an instant consumer loan launched in 2018. Underwriting and collection will be the responsibility of the partner banks.

Google-Pay dominates in UPI transaction

Google-Pay dominates the UPI transaction segment in the country. According to the National Payment Corporation of India, in May, around 1.2 billion transactions were done in the country through UPI. Out of this, 500 million transactions were done through Google Pay only.

Google Pay is working on a variety of products for merchants

Google-Pay Senior Director Product Management Ambareesh Kange recently said that the company is working on a variety of products to help merchants and consumers in this uncertain time. Kangay had said that we are in talks with our financial partners to make a loan offer to the merchant.

Google-Pay provides loans to consumers through these banks

1. HDFC bank
2. ICICI Bank
3. Federal bank
4. Axis Bank
5. Kotak Mahindra Bank