<p>Alphabet Inc's Google Pay launched its first co-branded digital credit card in India on Wednesday in partnership with Axis Bank, intensifying efforts to monetize its massive user base in the country's crowded fintech sector.</p><p><strong>Why it's important</strong></p><p>While Google Pay is a dominant player in India's popular domestic payments network, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), its core service generates zero revenue from user-to-user payments due to government mandates. It, however, earns commissions for in-app services like bill payments and mobile recharges.</p><p>The credit card launch opens a new avenue for Google to monetize its user base, mirroring strategies by domestic rivals Paytm and PhonePe to cross-sell lending products to payment users.</p>.With freebies, OpenAI, Google vie for Indian users and training data.<p><strong>By the numbers</strong></p><p>India has just 50 million credit card holders, according to Google Pay, whereas its population exceeds 1.4 billion.</p><p>Google Pay meanwhile is the second top app in India by number of UPI transactions, having processed nearly 7.2 billion transactions in October alone.</p><p><strong>How it works</strong></p><p>Axis Bank manages the credit risk and issuance, while the digital-only card will be linked to the Google Pay app to make online and offline payments on the go.</p>
<p>Alphabet Inc's Google Pay launched its first co-branded digital credit card in India on Wednesday in partnership with Axis Bank, intensifying efforts to monetize its massive user base in the country's crowded fintech sector.</p><p><strong>Why it's important</strong></p><p>While Google Pay is a dominant player in India's popular domestic payments network, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), its core service generates zero revenue from user-to-user payments due to government mandates. It, however, earns commissions for in-app services like bill payments and mobile recharges.</p><p>The credit card launch opens a new avenue for Google to monetize its user base, mirroring strategies by domestic rivals Paytm and PhonePe to cross-sell lending products to payment users.</p>.With freebies, OpenAI, Google vie for Indian users and training data.<p><strong>By the numbers</strong></p><p>India has just 50 million credit card holders, according to Google Pay, whereas its population exceeds 1.4 billion.</p><p>Google Pay meanwhile is the second top app in India by number of UPI transactions, having processed nearly 7.2 billion transactions in October alone.</p><p><strong>How it works</strong></p><p>Axis Bank manages the credit risk and issuance, while the digital-only card will be linked to the Google Pay app to make online and offline payments on the go.</p>