Google Pay is prioritising faster, safer domestic transactions within India, with no immediate plans for cross-border payments, as it emphasises fraud prevention and user security under new strategies announced by Kunal Rana.
Google Pay is not pursuing cross-border payments or remittances at present and is instead concentrating on making domestic transactions in India quicker, easier and more secure, Kunal Rana, the company’s director of merchant services, said on Friday. Speaking on the sidelines of the 3rd edition of FinInvest in New Delhi, Rana said the priority is improving how reliably payments go through within the home market.
Rana said transaction success rates remain a central metric for the platform and described speed, simplicity and safety as the main pillars of its current push. Google’s own help and safety pages say the service is built around payment protection features, including fraud warnings, device security and tools designed to keep card details and account information safer. In India, Google Pay also directs users to protect themselves with device locks and a UPI PIN, while advising them to be wary of suspicious calls, messages and requests for personal information.
He also said the company is trying to make digital payments safer by flagging possible problems when it detects something unusual about the recipient of a transfer. Rana said users are warned in the local language linked to that person, a move he said is intended to reduce mistakes and fraud. Google’s support material similarly urges users to send money only to people they know and to report fraudulent activity promptly.
Fraud prevention, Rana said, is a constant battle because new scams emerge even after existing threats are tackled. He said Google Pay has stopped scams and fraud worth more than Rs 13,000 crore over recent years, although he added that he was recalling the figure from memory. Rana also said artificial intelligence could help micro, small and medium enterprises compete more effectively by giving them tools once available mainly to larger companies, including better use of customer feedback and smarter stock decisions. On the zero-MDR regime for UPI, he said Google Pay would abide by whatever the government, lawmakers and industry bodies decide.
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