[NFC payment support added] Google Pay credit & debit cards support in India is now available to some Android & Wear OS users

This story is being continuously updated…. New updates are being added at the bottom…..

Original story (published on August 15, 2020) follows:

Google Pay — earlier known as Google Tez — is arguably one of the most popular digital payment applications in India. The convenience offered by Google’s payment application has made many users in the country switch over to it for making regular transactions.

But unlike Google Pay in some other regions such as the U.S. which lets users pay via stored cards, Google Pay in India solely relies on the UPI (Unified Payments Interface) system. With this, users can link their bank accounts to the application and make payments directly.

Thus, users cannot store their credit or debit card details to make NFC payments at terminals in stores or online payments. While the UPI system has its own perks, at times users end up being hassled. Just a few days ago, we reported that SBI account holders were not able to make UPI transactions.

And since Google Pay in India basically only allows UPI transactions, the app became useless for those with accounts in the State Bank of India. This, however, can easily be avoided if Google brings debit and credit card support to Google Pay in India.

Apparently, it seems that’s exactly what the search giant is doing. We’re starting to see reports surface on Reddit regarding the arrival of card payment support on Google Pay. One user has shared an image of the Payment methods app screen on Google Pay which now shows the option to add a credit or debit card.

Although, it appears that for now, users can only add Axis bank VISA debit/credit cards and SBI VISA credit cards. We’ve added the image shared on Reddit below:

As you can see, there’s now an option to add a card to Google Pay. Else, for those who don’t yet have the new feature to add a card, there’s only one option and that is to add a bank account as you can see from the image below.

But that’s not all. Some users are now reporting that Google Pay is working on their Wear OS-powered smartwatches in India. One Redditor claimed that the option to add a card on Google Pay is now available on the Fossil Sport.

Moreover, the user has also posted an update claiming that they managed to set up their card in the Google Pay app on their watch. However, several other Google Pay users claim to have no such option available. Thus, it seems that Google is rolling out the feature at random to a limited number of users.

So it’s too early to come to a conclusion on whether we can expect to see the feature roll out widely soon. FYI, Google Pay was also going to get support for Virtual Tokenized Cards back in 2019 but that feature never saw the light of day in India.

Although, since it seems Google has already secured a deal with SBI and Axis Bank, the feature might indeed be released shortly. Of course, we will continue to track the situation and will post an update once we have more details regarding the availability of card support in the app.

A new report indicates that Google has finally added NFC payment support on Google Pay in India. At present, the feature is available for Axis and SBI Card cardholders, and other banks are expected to follow suit. The tap-to-pay option will work on all NFC-enabled point of sale (POS) terminals.

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