Google Tez Gets Utility Bill Payments Support

Google Tez, the app that leverages the government's Unified Payments Interface (UPI) to enable cashless transactions, has been updated to start supporting bill payments in India. The new option is now available on the Google Tez app for Android and iOS and appears to be designed to counter mobile wallets such as Paytm and MobiKwik that have been offering the ability to pay bills through their apps for a long time. Google originally announced the of the bill payments at the Google for India convention last December.

You can use the Google Tez app to pay your electricity bills, gas bills, landline bills, and postpaid mobile bills. Also, the app supports DTH recharge and payments for insurance premiums. Moreover, there are over 70 billers, including ACT, Airtel, DishTV, DoCoMo, MTNL, and Tata Power among others. The app can also fetch all unpaid bills from the biller.

"As we announced at Google for India in 2017, we are starting to roll out a customised experience for bill payments to Tez users to make this monthly task a much more convenient and pleasant experience," a Google spokesperson said in a statement emailed to Gadgets 360.

To pay a bill, you need to tap New under the Payments section and then select Pay your bills option. From there, you need to pick your biller and enter your billing information to create a payment account. The app will verify the billing information and then allow you to view billing details. Once you've selected an outstanding bill from the available details, you are required to link your bank account to the Google Tez app, if it's not already linked, and then enter the UPI Pin to proceed for the payment.

Alongside giving the option to pay bills, Google has provided the option to view your existing bills. You need to tap a biller from the bottom of the Google Tez screen to see a list with details of all paid and pending bills. Similarly, you can check the status of a previous payment by tapping a biller from the bottom of the screen.

You need to install the latest newer version of the Google Tez app on your Android (v8.0) or iOS (v8.0) to get the new bill payments option. The app requires Android 4.4 and above and iOS 8.2 and later.

At the Google for India event, Google's Next Billion Users initiative chief Caser Sengupta revealed that the Google Tez app has over 12 million users in India. Sengupta also highlighted that since its launch in September last year, the app has processed 140 million transactions. CEO Sundar Pichai during the company's earnings call in last October stated the Google Tez app had added over 7.5 million users in just five weeks since its launch.