The multinational technology giant Google is reportedly teaming up with four Indian banks for the purpose of granting consumer loans online. This move comes as the fight for a $1 trillion digital finance market is intensifying.
The banks that the largest search engine is partnering with include HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Federal Bank. These banks in collaboration with Google will offer instant, pre-approved loans to customers “right within Google Pay in a matter of seconds.”
In this technology-driven era, internet giants are joining the league to provide financial services in the world’s fastest-growing mobile arena. Online lending is becoming the next big thing as mobile users look for small loans with minimal paperwork and formalities. This also helps to save time of the users and loan raisers.
“We’ve learned that when we build for India, we build for the world,” Caesar Sengupta, vice president of Google’s Next Billion Users initiative and Payments said at the ‘Google for India’ event in New Delhi.
It has been stated that over 55 million people in across 300,000 towns and villages have downloaded Google’s payments app for the purpose of paying for bus rides, split dinner bills or other payments as such. These payments have amounted to $30 billion in annual transactions. The overall market is expected to reach to $1 trillion by 2023 from $200 billion at present.
Google is also planning other initiatives such as expanding its Google Station internet access program to 12,000 villages and cities across the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. Also, it is planning to launch a new feature in Google Go that let users listen to websites read out in English and five Indian languages.