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Google's New Payment App For India Transfers Money Via Ultrasound (buzzfeed.com)

Posted by msmash on from the next-billion-users dept.

Pranav Dixit, writing for BuzzFeed News: Google's goal for the brand-new payments app it launched in India on Monday is simple yet ambitious: to get in on the action each time someone sends or receives money in its largest market outside the United States. The app is called Tez -- Hindi for "fast" -- and it lets users do three things: send money to people in their phones' address books, make payments to businesses (both online as well as in real-world mom-and-pop stores), and zap cash to anyone around them -- all without knowing bank account numbers or personal details. Tez is powered by UPI, short for Unified Payments Interface, a Indian government-backed payments standard that lets users transfer money directly into each other's bank accounts using just their mobile numbers, or a bank-issued payment ID that looks like an email address. It works a lot like Venmo does in the US, except that anyone can build their own payments app on top of UPI. Once you hit Pay or Receive, Tez detects other Tez users around you with a proprietary technology called Audio QR based on ultrasound, and pairs with their phones. Once a sender puts in the amount and authenticates with a preset PIN to confirm who they're sending money to, a transaction happens in seconds.

37 comments

  1. Is this ethical? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    With the possibility of compromise, what would happen to India if all payments were instead sent via the brown note?

    1. Re:Is this ethical? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      racist

  2. Two birds with one stone! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    So now when you're in India and your ultrasound shows you're pregnant with a girl, you can pay for the ultrasound and abortion without leaving the doctor's table!

    1. Re:Two birds with one stone! by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Except that in India, it's illegal to reveal to parents the gender of unborn children. So in that doctor's visit, they can show the ultrasound images of the fetus to the parents while getting simultaneously paid - w/o the parents realizing the latter }:-)

  3. Alternative First Post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    Ignore the FAKE NEWS posts above. This is the actual first post.

  4. woooow fantastic by www.al-awa2el.com · · Score: 0

    woooow fantastic

    --
    ØرÙfØ© ØÙØ
    1. Re:woooow fantastic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      You seem to have a lot of gas tonight. You chuckle since you know you're about to release a very big very foul
      smelling FART. It feels like a "Silent But Deadly" variety of fart. Someone is going to smell it and they are not
      going to like it. That much is certain. The question is - can you keep a straight face while they express their
      disgust? For to burst out laughing would be a sure sign that you are the smelly assed culprit. It's more fun to keep
      them guessing! Maybe you can pretend to be disgusted too. You won't be of course, for your own farts aren't so bad -
      to you. Everybody knows that.

      So you bear down internally, producing a magnificent FART with one mighty and silent release. As you wait for the gas
      to finally finish coming out of your colon, you imagine the newly formed cloud of invisible noxious smelling gas
      beginning to mix with the air in the room, and you suppress an urge to giggle. Almost done now, yeah that's right.
      At the very end of your release of the gaseous beast, something goes terribly wrong. Oh no. A quiet but nontheless
      audible sound like PFFRRFHHFRRHFPPFHRHF is heard but only by you. You feel it filling your underpants a little. Damn
      it you think you felt it go down your leg a little ways. Yes, it is confirmed. You have SHIT your pants. It may be
      liquid but it's definitely shit. That and well, shit is what comes out of your asshole, and that was definitely your
      ass, dumbass. You slowly get up and make a run for the restroom, trying not to act like anything is wrong. You feel
      sad that you won't be around to see the reaction to the fart that's gonna cost you your clean pants.

      So you make it to the restroom and you *think* nobody noticed but you never can tell for sure, not with such matters.
      You peel down your - now a bit sticky - pants and catch a whiff of the fresh shit on them. You briefly consider that
      the liquid state of the shit combined with its ability to soak into the fabric serves to greatly increase the
      available surface area emitting the shit smell. That would explain the unexpected potency. You slide your underwear
      down next, yup of course this is where most of the damage is, damn it what a mess. You contemplate throwing them away
      along with your pants. Well no time to worry about that. Now it's time to finish the job. Now it's time to have a
      proper, solid not liquid, SHIT.

      So you're doing your business on the commode and everything is working well. At least everything definitely seems to
      be in order. You think you felt something odd a moment ago but it was so subtle and fleeting you easily disregarded
      it. As is your custom, you sat up enough to be able to look down and admire the fecal matter you just produced.
      You're pretty sure this is a big nasty one - the kind that's perfect for the old upper decker. Heh the upper decker.
      You shit not in the bowl but in the toilet tank after you take off its lid. Then you neatly put the lid back on.
      Hilarity ensues! Whoever owns that toilet has two choices - reach in and remove the soft stinking fruit of your
      bowels, or put up with freshly brewed shitwater for a couple of weeks every time they flush the toilet. Yeah that's
      funny as long as it doesn't happen to you anyway.

      You felt something odd again. Now you can see your turds more clearly you also see something wriggling on them.
      Fuck. What you see nearly makes you pass out. Ok not really but kinda. Anyway it was horrifying. You see a very
      long thin tapeworm stretched downward with some unseen part of its body buried in the largest log of SHIT. The other
      end of it is still somewhere in your rectum. And there are more much smaller ones wriggling in a nauseating way on
      the surface of your smaller turds. But it's definitely the one still up your asshole that bothers you the most. Your
      skin crawls and you sit there staring at it for a moment. Not really so sure what the hell you're supposed to do now,
      you try to reach down and gra

    2. Re: woooow fantastic by dougdonovan · · Score: -1

      i will give the people from india this much. they move to the US with their masters and they are...for the most part...25 to 30 years old.

  5. Difference between air waves and EM waves? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is there really that much of a difference between air waves and EM waves? Both are modulations of some medium. Does the medium really matter?

    While we're on this topic, what are EM waves? I've heard enough different descriptions of them, but none of these descriptions are every very intuitive. For example, we know that sound waves travel through a physical medium such as air or water. It's the atoms making up these substances that are moving within the physical dimensions. But what do EM waves travel through? What is the medium?

    1. Re:Difference between air waves and EM waves? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Plato would like you to stop stealing his arguments from 400BC.

    2. Re: Difference between air waves and EM waves? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are they waves or aren't they particles, that is the question.

    3. Re:Difference between air waves and EM waves? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What is the medium?

      Why, it's the message.

  6. I'm sure this will be great for people's hearing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    no problems at all.

  7. More importantly, will it let us do the needful? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    My question is, will this technology let us do the needful? If making a payment is the needful then I suspect it just may.

  8. The UPI is the big deal here! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The significant bit here isn't the ultrasound tech, but the UPI. This is backed by the Indian Government, and is *free*. Here in the US, banks charge $10 for a wire transfer, which actually reduces the amount of work they need to do (as compared to a paper cheque, which is free). But then, this requires a government to work for the people, not the corporates.

    1. Re:The UPI is the big deal here! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is there an undo mechanism in UPI? Who takes the loss in case of errors or fraud?

      e.g. you're paying for something, and completely accidentally had an extra 0 at the end of the amount. What if the merchant says "nope, dunno you, go away"?

    2. Re:The UPI is the big deal here! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't know which bank you're talking about, but I have a bank of America account and I can send and receive electronic payments for FREE!

    3. Re:The UPI is the big deal here! by sl3xd · · Score: 1

      Here in the US, banks charge $10 for a wire transfer,

      For a "wire transfer", perhaps (I recall doing that for the down payment on my mortgage) , but an ACH transaction is generally free.

      That's not to say that ACH isn't without issues, but the big issue in the US is cultural, rather than technological.

      A government-backed payment system would give the IRS a way to monitor payments, and makes it a lot easier to prosecute people with apparently untaxed income. Gotta keep those guys with accounts in the Cayman islands happy.

      --
      -- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
    4. Re:The UPI is the big deal here! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here in the US, banks charge $10 for a wire transfer,

      For a "wire transfer", perhaps (I recall doing that for the down payment on my mortgage) , but an ACH transaction is generally free.

      Yep everyone one of my banks (like a smart person I use several to keep my eggs from being in one basket) ACH has always been free. Wire transfers cost money because unlike a check or ACH they clear in the same day.

    5. Re:The UPI is the big deal here! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Most countries have forgotten the role of governments. Governments create *standards*, you know, things like currency, 220V outlet plugs, telephone number system, etc. UPI fits perfectly into that. More governments should standardize basic things. Like hailing a cab. Why does Uber have to corner the market? There are already plenty of taxis that are registered with the government. Seems like a no-brainer to create a free standard for taxis to find customers and vice-versa. The govt doesn't need to even build the app, just specify a standard oh how taxis will broadcast and how customers will ping. Instead, many countries touting "free-markets" are shirking the govt's duty to provide standards.

      Let private companies do what they do best: rapidly changing goods and services, like a new iPhone release every year. Let governments do what they do best: specify long-lasting standards that any individual or corporation can tie into and have compatibility for at least 10+ years.

    6. Re:The UPI is the big deal here! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Banks in India also use IMPS, NEFT or RTGS, three other payment methods that are backed by the government, that are also free of cost, work between any two banks, and clear in the same day (immediately, within minutes, or up to an hour, respectively).

    7. Re:The UPI is the big deal here! by Lennie · · Score: 1

      Normally I would agree, but the Indian government has some strange ideas about how money should be managed. A large percentage of cash was declared basically useless over night.

      http://www.independent.co.uk/n...

      --
      New things are always on the horizon
  9. Intelligence agencies are going to love this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is active sonar for the human world. Good computers should allow spatial reconstruction of scene given just a few "pings". This is realtime 3d tracking of those with and without phones.

    If this becomes popular, "they" should be able to track nearly every human being in India.

    Given the deep power here, I'm betting it gets baked in deep to the next OS update.

    1. Re:Intelligence agencies are going to love this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know that sonar scene in The Dark Knight wasn't real, right? For that matter, if you want to track people location, you can just use the location provided by their phone.

    2. Re: Intelligence agencies are going to love this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Carrier*

  10. thiS \FP for GNAA! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    user. 'Now that Abysmal sales and plE4se moderate

  11. Should I worry now asks Slumdawg Millionaire by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Google getting a little piece of the action is a hint of things to come. The government can now tax the global giant, and can slap a VAT on each transaction. Uh-oh; glad I haven't moved there.

  12. Pro Tip: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    don't let an American company handle your payments, because they will suck up and distill every little bit of information they can, to their and the governments use.

  13. Tez? Apache says hi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    https://tez.apache.org/

  14. India bankrupted by rogue dolphins by Dirk+Becher · · Score: 1

    So long, and thanks for all the cash!

  15. Is new hardware required? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Am I missing something? Is there a new chip and/or sensor required in a smartphone to transmit and receive ultrasound?

    1. Re:Is new hardware required? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Am I missing something? Is there a new chip and/or sensor required in a smartphone to transmit and receive ultrasound?

      I suspect that it is a sneaky little component that has been part of telephones since Alexander Graham Bell. I know that there are lots of two-thumbed people who keep busy on their phones but seem to be unaware that the phones have microphones, but that little device is in there.

      My Palm phones had those nifty I/R receiver/transmitters. My guess is that Google here was trying to find another way to make short-range communication where they aren't sure that any phone has I/R capabilities or that every phone can do NFC.

  16. Re:More importantly, will it let us do the needful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh cool. I'd be able to pop out all my money to everybody using my Tez Dispenser.

    I guess I'd keep having to get refills, though.

  17. good bitcoin competitor but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    only for indians? inflationary money? great as a currency, fast and widely accepted in india...

  18. Now your kids can buy stuff from Google Play by Ukab+the+Great · · Score: 1

    without your permission before they're even born.

  19. Can they use this technology by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    to get people to poop in the toilet? That would be sweet. I don't know how else to solve this. Everything else humans normally respond to has not been working.

  20. Bank account and personal details by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    zap cash to anyone around them -- all without knowing bank account numbers or personal details.

    The payer and the receiver didn't know, but if both party used the Google payment app, you can be 100% sure that Google will know, track, and store it forever.