Google Pay users from US can now send money to users in India, Singapore

According to the partnership, Wise will extend the support in over 80 countries, while Western Union will power cross-border payments on Google Pay in over 200 countries.

In the transactional process, when a Google Pay user in the US will attempt to send money to someone in India or Singapore, he or she will be informed about the exact amount that the recipient will receive. Following this, the sender will get an option in the Google Pay app to choose which payments provider — Wise or Western Union — he/she is willing to use. Also, it would help the sender track the transactional details and the duration for the recipient to receive the money.

Apart from person-to-person payments, the cross-border payments is not available.

India being the largest receiving country for remittances in 2019, received over $80 billion in the year, said World Bank. However, the US emerged to be the largest sender.

With the partnership, both Wise and Western Union expect to expand their presence in several markets and more aggressively compete with rivals such as PayPal.

Earlier, Western Union had mentioned that it would not charge any receivers and they would get the exact value in their local currency as chosen by the user in the US. However, Wise said that it would charge the actual foreign exchange rate and additional transfer fees, that would vary from country to country.

In the meantime, Google has said that it would not levy any fee to customers. Till June 16, Western Union will offer unlimited free transfers when sending money with Google Pay, while Wise will make the first transfer free for new customers on transfers up to $500.