Google Pay Issue Suddenly Removes Bank Accounts for Some Users, Company Says Now Fixed

Google Pay faced a service disruption in India on Tuesday. Multiple users reported that the app has suddenly removed their bank accounts, preventing them from making transactions. The issue appears to have a limited impact, though several users have posted their complaints on social media platforms. Google Pay is one of the more popular mobile payments sources in India. As of September last year, the app is touted to have over 67 million monthly active users in the country. The Google Pay app is also believed to have contributed largely in the growth of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) based digital payments in the country. The company acknowledged the issue in a statement to Gadgets 360, and said the issue is now fixed.

As per the user reports on Twitter, the Google Pay app had suddenly removed bank account details and was no longer allowing users to connect back their existing bank accounts. Several users have pointed out that instead of showing all the listed bank options, the app is providing only State Bank of India (SBI) as the option to select for the affected accounts.

It is unclear whether the issue is limited to the Android version of the Google Pay app or has impacted iPhone users as well. Gadgets 360 was able to verify the fact that the problem doesn't impact all Google Pay users, with only some users in our team affected. However, it appears that the issue isn't restricted to a select region and exists for various Google Pay accounts in India.

Gadgets 360 wrote to Google India for a comment, and were informed the issue is now fixed. "We are aware that some users faced difficulties with linking their bank accounts on Google Pay today. The issue, impacting a small number of users, was identified earlier today and our teams have worked to resolve it and have implemented a fix within the hour. The issue stands resolved and users will now be able to use the app normally. Users facing any issue should reach out to Google Pay support through our app. We regret the inconvenience caused and are committed to providing our users a seamless payments experience," said Ambarish Kenghe, Director - Product Management, Google Pay.

Following the acknowledgement of the issue and release of a fix, affected Gadget 360 team members were able to get Google Pay working again properly after reinstalling the app. We recommend other affected users resort to this method if the issue is not fixed on its own.

In September last year, Google Pay surpassed PhonePe and hit the mark of 67 million monthly active users in India. The app grew three times in the last 12 months alone and drove transactions worth over $110 billion (roughly Rs. 7,82,800 crores) on an annualised basis, the search giant had claimed at the fifth edition of its annual ‘Google for India' event.

Google Pay was initially known as Google Tez in India. However, Google in 2018 rebranded the app as Google Pay to provide a unified branding in India as well as the global markets.