Dive Brief:
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Starting today, Google Pay customers in the U.S. will be able to send money to other Google Pay users in India and Singapore. Google Pay is partnering with Western Union and Wise to provide cross-border peer-to-peer (P2P) payments.
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"Partnering with remittance providers means Google Pay, Western Union and Wise can each lean on their respective strengths," a Google spokesperson told Payments Dive. "As a consumer technology company, Google Pay has experience in making complicated processes simple for users, while Wise and Western Union have expertise in cross-border transfers."
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Earlier this year, the tech giant enabled grocery stores Safeway and Target to push promotional information and discounts to nearby consumers. Google Pay also allowed customers to pay for public transit in more than 80 cities across the country.
Dive Insight:
Google Pay, a digital wallet and online payment system, is working with Western Union and Wise to facilitate the cross-border payments, and plans on adding 200 more countries via Western Union and 80 via Wise.
The payments system is targeted at making remittance payments easier and simpler. Global remittance payment volume dropped 8.7% last year to $627 million, down from $686 million in 2019, according to an Insider Intelligence research report. The payments are expected to partially rebound this year to $661 billion, the report stated.
In the grocery marketing partnership announced last month, Google Pay will display grocery deals to consumers in the vicinity of some 500 Safeway stores as well as Target stores nationwide.
Google Pay also added payment options for public transit systems in major cities like Chicago and San Francisco. The company is also integrating with Token Transit, a transit ticket purchasing app, to expand transit support to smaller towns across the U.S., as many cities are making upgrades to their transit system.
Last year, the company partnered with 11 banks including Citibank, BBVA USA and BMO Harris to launch Google Plex accounts. Google's app serves as the front-end to the accounts which are actually hosted by the partner banks.
