Since its launch in the country back in 2017, Google Pay has become one of the most popular UPI payment apps in India. The app has over 75 million transacting users, as per data available from May last year. This growth has been helped along by the continuous addition of new and useful features within the app, including bill payments and recharges.
Now, Google is working on bringing support for contactless UPI payments in the Google Pay app. The news comes from the folks over at Android Police who spotted the feature explained in the Google Support pages.
With this new feature, you will soon be able to simply tap your phone on payment terminals and complete your payments, without having to scan QR codes or enter contact numbers in your Google Pay app. Moreover, since the feature will use UPI for transactions, you don’t need to really change anything on your end. You can simply tap your phone on a compatible payment terminal (currently only PineLabs POS systems are supported), and your phone will automatically launch Google Pay. Then, you can simply enter the amount to be paid, followed by your UPI pin, to complete the payment.
Obviously, you will need to have a smartphone with an NFC chip inside, and Google has some more security standards as well. Right now, it seems the feature will only be available on Android phones. Google says that your phone’s software should be Play Protect certified for the feature to work. Moreover, the feature might not work with phones running developer versions of Android, custom ROMs, etc. You can head over to this support page to see the compatibility requirements for the UPI over NFC feature.
