Google Pay to roll out feature to ease digital payment experience

PTI, Nov 18, 2021, 5:43 PM IST

Google Pay on Thursday said it will launch a ‘speech to text feature that allows users to use voice as an input to add account numbers into the app to initiate a payment.

Google Pay, which competes with platforms like PhonePe, Paytm, and Amazon Pay, has also announced an ”industry first and a first for Google globally” feature, wherein it will offer an additional option of selecting Hinglish as a preferred language on the platform.

”We’ve been on a mission to make money simple, and in general, the way we think about it is creating a lot of economic opportunity for everyone, whether it’s banks or our partners. We are very happy with how the digital payment ecosystem is doing in India and the role we have played directly as well as as a catalyst to help users in India,” Google Pay Vice President (Product Management) Ambarish Kenghe told PTI.

He added that the company is focused on innovation and bringing in the best of technology as part of its efforts to make digital payments universally relevant and inclusive.

”To further simplify digital payments, we are introducing an industry first and a first for Google globally, the additional option of selecting Hinglish as a preferred language on Google Pay. With this addition, users will be able to easily navigate the app in the language of their preference, with Hinglish as an option to mirror how a large section of Indians interact naturally,” Kenghe said.

He added that to bring further convenience to users, Google Pay will also launch speech-to-text that will allow users to use voice as an input to add account numbers into the app to initiate a payment and an additional feature to split bills for shared expenses within a group.

He emphasized that the same level of data security will be maintained with voice input as is the case with typed information.

Kenghe said over 10 million merchants are now on Google Pay for Business.

He explained that given that many more merchants are joining the fold of digital payments every day, the company is making it easy for merchants and micro-entrepreneurs to create an online presence directly from the Google Pay for business app.

”With the launch of MyShop – merchants will be able to effortlessly build a storefront where they will be able to add images, descriptions of their products, and prices easily and intuitively, then share the link, through their Business Profile, across Google surfaces and beyond Google on social media,” he said.

This will further fuel the adoption of digital payments amongst new adopters, and help merchants create their online presence, and gain from the growing digital economy, he said adding that the coming months will see MyShop and other features go live on Google Play.

Kenghe highlighted that there is a need for the ecosystem to come together and invest in the infrastructure to ensure its robustness and security.

”That can happen only if the system is made sustainable for everyone. So the ecosystem financially also has to become sustainable for everyone. That’s something we are looking forward to both on the robustness side and how it becomes sustainable for everyone – whether it’s around simplifying the experience of payments or creating innovative avenues for greater safety and security,” he said.

The features were announced at the seventh Google for India event on Thursday. Satya Raghavan, Director of Content Partnerships for YouTube India, introduced a feature on YouTube that will now allow users to create videos directly from YouTube channels with movies and songs.

Users can now simply click on the create button below the videos on the NH Studioz YouTube channel and re-create clips with their voiceover.

NH Studioz, which owns the rights for over 2000 Bollywood movies has made available its content on their YouTube channel for its subscribers. Over 250 classic full-length movies and thousands of movie clips and songs will give movie lovers a wide range of options to choose from to create videos using the new YouTube feature.

NH Studioz YouTube channel has over 10 million subscribers and more than 10,000 videos with over 4 billion views and counting.

To ensure that subscribers can make the most of it from this new YouTube feature, NH Studioz will be uploading a wide variety of classic movie dialogues and scenes on its channel soon.