Tez was a

mobile payments A mobile payment, also referred to as mobile money, mobile money transfer and mobile wallet, is any of various payment processing services operated under financial regulations and performed from or via a mobile device, as the cardinal class of d ...

service by

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

, targeted at users in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, later folded into the new

Google Pay Google Pay may refer to: * Google Pay (mobile app), a mobile payments app introduced in 2020 * Google Pay (2018–2022), a digital wallet app introduced in 2018, now Google Wallet * Google Pay (payment method), a digital payments service introduced ...

app on 28 August 2018. It operated atop the

Unified Payments Interface Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is an instant real-time payment system developed by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). The interface facilitates inter-bank peer-to-peer (P2P) and person-to-merchant (P2M) transactions. It is used o ...

, developed by the

National Payments Corporation of India The National Payments Corporation of India is an umbrella organization for operating retail payments and settlement systems in India, is an initiative of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) under the provisions of ...

. Tez worked on the vast majority of India's smartphones (with apps for both

Android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...

and

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

) with the Android app supporting

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia ** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nati ...

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub- ...

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...

, and

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

. There were plans to release the app in other emerging countries including

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

, and

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

. "Tez" is the Hindi word for "Fast". Within 37 days after being launched, Tez got about 8.5 million installations. Over 30 million transactions were made on the app as of 27 October 2017.

Service

Acceptability

Tez was accepted by

PVR Cinemas PVR Ltd (formerly Priya Village Roadshow Ltd), doing business as PVR Cinemas, is an Indian multiplex chain based in Gurgaon. PVR pioneered the multiplex revolution in India by establishing the first multiplex cinema in 1997 at Saket, New Delh ...

redBus redBus is an Indian online bus ticketing platform, providing ticket booking facilities through its website and iOS and Android mobile apps. It is headquartered in Bangalore and works like a hub, acting as a medium for a network of more than ...

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechri ...

ACT Broadband Atria Convergence Technologies Limited, branded as ACT, is an Indian telecommunications company headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. ACT offers fibre to the home (FTTH) services under the brand name "ACT Fibernet" and digital televisi ...

, State government Electricity boards and was expected to be joined by a number of other businesses like

Dish TV Dish, dishes or DISH may refer to: Culinary * Dish (food), something prepared to be eaten * Dishware, plates and bowls for eating, cutting boards, silverware Communications * Dish antenna a type of antenna * Dish Network, a satellite televis ...

Jet Airways Jet Airways (India) Ltd is an Indian airline based in Delhi NCR, with a training and developmental center in Mumbai. Incorporated in April 1992 as a limited liability company, the airline began operations as an air taxi operator in 1993. It b ...

and

Domino's Domino's Pizza, Inc., trading as Domino's, is an American multinational pizza restaurant chain founded in 1960 and led by CEO Russell Weiner. The corporation is Delaware General Corporation Law, Delaware domiciled and headquartered at the Domino ...

Vodafone Idea Vodafone Idea (or Vi, and/but stylised as ''V!'') is an Indian telecom operator with its headquarters based in Mumbai and Gandhinagar. It is a pan-India integrated GSM operator offering 2G, 3G, 4G, 4G+, VoLTE, and VoWiFi service. As of 31 ...

Swiggy Swiggy is an Indian online food ordering and delivery platform. Founded in July 2014, Swiggy is based in Bangalore and operates in 500 Indian cities as of September 2021. Besides food delivery, Swiggy also provides on-demand grocery deliveries ...

Zomato Zomato () is an Indian multinational restaurant aggregator and food delivery company founded by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah in 2008. Zomato provides information, menus and user-reviews of restaurants as well as food delivery options fro ...

Uber Uber Technologies, Inc. (Uber), based in San Francisco, provides mobility as a service, ride-hailing (allowing users to book a car and driver to transport them in a way similar to a taxi), food delivery (Uber Eats and Postmates), package ...

Ola Ola may refer to: Places Panama *Olá, a subdistrict in Coclé Province *Olá District Russia *Ola, Russia, an urban settlement in Magadan Oblast *Ola District, an administrative division in Magadan Oblast *Ola (river), a river in Magadan Obla ...

, Clubfactory, Zappfresh,

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...

Flipkart Flipkart Private Limited is an Indian e-commerce company, headquartered in Bengaluru, and incorporated in Singapore as a private limited company. The company initially focused on online book sales before expanding into other product categories ...

and many more businesses. Google was also working with existing advertisers and online e-commerce platforms like

Shopify Shopify Inc. is a Canadian multinational e-commerce company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario. Shopify is the name of its proprietary e-commerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems. The Shopify platform offers online ret ...

and payment aggregators like

BillDesk BillDesk is an Indian online payment gateway company based in Mumbai. The company provides an online payment platform for its clients which enables banking and merchant website transactions. History BillDesk was founded by Indian entrepreneurs ...

and

PayU PayU is a Netherlands-based payment service provider to online merchants. The company was founded in 2002, and is headquartered in Hoofddorp. It allows online businesses to accept and process payments through payment methods that can be integrate ...

. Google planned to add even more ways to pay on Tez (e.g., credit cards and wallets). Select phones from manufacturer partners

Lava Lava is molten or partially molten rock (magma) that has been expelled from the interior of a terrestrial planet (such as Earth) or a moon onto its surface. Lava may be erupted at a volcano or through a fracture in the crust, on land or un ...

, Nokia Mobile, and

Panasonic formerly between 1935 and 2008 and the first incarnation of between 2008 and 2022, is a major Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka, Kadoma, Osaka P ...

would have come with Tez preinstalled.

Device compatibility

The app was compatible with the vast majority of

and

devices.

Technology

The application does not require users to share any personal information such as mobile numbers or usernames like other payment applications. Instead, it uses audio QR codes that rely on sound transmitted at a frequency inaudible to the human ear from the payee handset to the merchant handset. This technology does away with the need for

NFC NFC may refer to: Psychology * Need for cognition, in psychology * Need for closure, social psychological term Sports * NFC Championship Game, the National Football Conference Championship Game * NCAA Football Championship (Philippines) * Nati ...

chips on the handsets, giving it an advantage because a significant number of smartphones in India and other developing markets do not have NFC chips embedded.

References

{{Payment service providers Discontinued Google services Payment and settlement systems in India Android (operating system) software Mobile payments