Mobile Money Heats Up in India as Google Doubles Down
28 Agosto 2018 - 10:41AM
Noticias Dow Jones
By Newley Purnell
NEW DELHI -- Alphabet Inc.'s Google is raising its
mobile-payments game in India with new functions and services as
global players race to woo the nation's legions of consumers who
are skipping credit cards and transacting on smartphones
instead.
A day after Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said it had
invested in the parent company of India's largest digital-payments
firm, called Paytm, Google said it is expanding its mobile money
service in the South Asian nation. It is partnering with several
local banks to offer consumer loans from within its app in the
coming weeks, aiming to assist users seeking cash to cover expenses
such as school fees.
Google is also expanding its tie-ups to more online merchants as
well as to physical retail shops such as India's ubiquitous mom and
pop stores.
Google's app, which launched in September 2017, is the search
titan's first such service permitting users to transfer money
electronically to individuals and businesses in the country without
the use of a credit or a debit card. It resembles a simple chat app
and functions in several Indian languages.
"India's witnessing an amazing transformation," Caesar Sengupta,
Google's vice president for its Next Billion Users initiative and
payments, said Tuesday in New Delhi. Internet access is expanding
and masses of people are getting hooked up to the web for the first
time, he said.
Google's payments app has been been downloaded more than 55
million times and has facilitated more than 750 million
transactions valued at an annualized rate of $30 billion per year,
Mr. Sengupta said.
While the app was originally called Tez, which means "fast" in
Hindi, Google says it is renaming it Google Pay with an eye on
expanding into other countries. "The future of the internet is
reflected right here in India," said Mr. Sengupta.
Mr. Buffett's Omaha, Neb., conglomerate said Monday it had
invested in Paytm parent company One97 Communications Ltd., which
has more than 300 million users. The app from Paytm, of Noida,
India, lets consumers pay for everything from auto-rickshaw rides
to utility bills, transfer money to others, and even buy portions
of gold bars, a common method of saving in India.
The deal's value was 20 billion to 25 billion rupees ($286
million to $358 million), according to a person familiar with the
matter. Berkshire portfolio manager Todd Combs, a trusted Buffett
lieutenant, is joining Paytm's board of directors, Paytm said
Tuesday.
Mr. Combs didn't immediately respond to an email seeking comment
about his board appointment.
"The payment ecosystem in India is growing so dynamically,"
Patym Founder and Chief Executive Vijay Shekhar Sharma said in an
interview Tuesday. He said he had traveled in February to meet Mr.
Combs in Omaha, where the two talked about business and
technology.
"Todd is an incredibly experienced payments and
financial-services industry person," Mr. Sharma said. "He will
bring us a unique perspective from a global background."
Paytm and Google are but two of several players vying for
India's consumers. Facebook Inc.'s WhatsApp, which has some 200
million users in India, is testing a mobile-payments feature and
hopes to roll it out across the country. Amazon.com Inc., which is
spending $5 billion to expand its operations here, has a
digital-payments feature called Amazon Pay.
Meanwhile, Indian policy makers have been considering ways to
reduce fast-expanding American tech behemoths' power in India, with
the fate of the world's biggest still-open internet economy at
stake.
"It is too early to say which app will win this space, said Neha
Dharia, a Bangalore-based analyst with research firm Warp Speed
Reads. "They are all clamoring for user numbers and transaction
volume." Key to victory, she said, is having a diverse portfolio of
services and being able to negotiate the "fast-evolving regulatory
landscape."
--Corinne Abrams and Nicole Friedman contributed to this
article.
Write to Newley Purnell at newley.purnell @wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 28, 2018 11:26 ET (15:26 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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