Google Pay Launches International Money Transfers For GPay Users

Google Pay users in the US can now send money to app users in India and Singapore, with the platform planning to extend the services to 80 countries supported by Wise and 200 countries supported by Western Union by the end of the year.

Wise, based in London, was established in 2011 with the aim of making international money transfers cheaper and faster, while Western Union, with its vast global network of physical locations, remains the market leader in remittances.

Their collaboration with Google Pay, which has 150 million users in 40 countries, comes handy as COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an increase in online payments, but a decrease in total remittances.

According to the latest World Bank figures, migrant workers' money sent home will have decreased by 14% in 2019 due to deteriorating economic conditions and job levels in migrant-hosting countries.

Josh Woodward, Google's director of product management, said, "Even with COVID, a lot of people have moved around the world, so we decided to concentrate on how we could better promote these payments".