According to information provided by Google representatives in a blog post, Google Pay made its regional debut in September 2017 and has since assisted India in its transition to safe and secure digital payments. The company plans to roll out SoundPod, an audio gadget that helps merchants track QR code payments by providing audio alerts when a payment is received, to small and medium-sized businesses in the next months following its introduction in a restricted test programme in 2023.
 

Google Pay's goal and SoundPod's capabilities

Given the high rate of adoption of the soundbox market in India, Google's action is intended to assist retailers in receiving payment and to challenge any fraudulent claims. Following the experiment, retailers who took part in the programme gave Google Pay excellent feedback on SoundPod, emphasising its potential to reduce checkout times. With the introduction, the company hopes to enhance SMEs' payment experience by streamlining and making it more convenient. Google announced a range of consumer and merchant offerings in October 2023, and now it is adding to that list. The firm plans to work with its partners in the financial sector to develop products that can close the credit gap in India.
 

The soundbox was also made to cater to small and medium-sized Indian retailers who take UPI payments but cannot afford standard point-of-sale equipment. In January 2024, Google Pay joined with NPCI International Payments with the goal of expanding UPI globally in order to support India's payment industry even more. The three primary goals of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that was signed at that time were to facilitate the process of remittances between regions, expand the use of UPI payments for travellers outside of India, and help create digital payment systems similar to UPI in other nations.

A subscription model for the soundbox emerged as a result of several participants charging retailers for subscriptions. However, as one industry participant told TechCrunch, the main advantages of the soundbox are that it offers insights into merchant activity and makes it easier to provide loans based on this data. With a one-time purchase of USD 18 for a year or USD 0.06 per day for 25 days in a month, Google Pay hopes to offer the SoundPod product at a lower cost. The business also intends to provide merchants with USD 1.5 in cash back if they use SoundPod to handle 400 payments in a month.

Furthermore, Google emphasises in its blog post that it wants to play a significant role in India's digital payments journey and would remain committed to the country's long-term growth and development.