UPI, or the Unified Payments Interface, is an open real-time payments infrastructure, designed by the the National Payments Corporation of India, that"s seeing rising popularity in that country. For a little more background on how UPI works, here"s a good read.
Google Tez (pronounced Taeyz, Hindi for "fast"), announced in September last year, has seen a good deal of success, with over 30 million transactions performed within its first month alone, giving it a 67% share in the UPI-based transaction market; Google has also been invested in the service, steadily expanding its feature-set.
But with the advent of WhatsApp"s in-app UPI payment service, Google faces stiff competition - the popular messaging platform currently has over 200 million active users in India alone.
Although the feature may be useful for some, it feels very shortsighted; beyond offering a marginally more streamlined interface to view one"s payments history, there"s not really much to be gained here. Rather than integrating Tez with its existing messaging solutions in order to build a more tightly integrated platform, Google is doing the opposite, further fragmenting its own offerings in the market.
Source: Economic Times