On Tuesday, the company announced that Google Pay users in the US will now be able to send money to users in India and Singapore.
Google has partnered with Western Union and Wise to enable the new service via the Google Pay app. “The arrival of Google Pay’s money transfer feature will be powered by a new integration with Western Union and Wise. By the end of the year, we expect that US Google Pay users will be able to send money to people in more than 200 countries and territories through Western Union and to more than 80 countries through Wise,” the company said in a blogpost.
Last year in November, Google began rolling out a redesigned Google Pay app to users in the United States. The version that was made available to US users was actually the version of the Google Pay app that was available in India and in Singapore. But now, Google has enabled the users in the US to transfer funds to users in India and Singapore.
Here are the few steps to send the money internationally from Google Pay:
Step 1: Download the latest version of Google Pay from the Play Store, if you do not have the new app redesign.
Step 2: Set up the Google Pay app by following the steps set out by Google which involves setting up your bank account.
Step 3: Now tap the ‘Pay’ button on the new Google Pay app home screen and choose between Western or Wise.
Step 4: Follow the instructions to complete the payment process.
Google also says US users will have free transfers from Western Union until June 16, while Wise will allow one free transfer, provided the amount is under $500.
In another significant development involving the internet-giant, Google Photos users will lose the free storage they have been enjoying for the past few years.
Last year, Google had announced that they are ending the unlimited free photo backup on Google Photos which means after June 1, 2021, users will not be able to use Google Photos cloud storage to backup and store unlimited ‘high quality’ for free.
In November,2020, Google Photos Product lead David Lieb explained on Twitter that the storage policy needs to be changed because free backups are costing big to the company. It is a necessary step to ‘align the primary cost’ of offering free service while also accepting the “primary value” of online storage.
Google says “over 1 billion people back up a remarkable 28 billion photos to Google Photos each week. In order to welcome even more of your memories and build for the future, we are making this change.”
It is worth noting that all the existing high-quality content will remain exempted from storage quota. This means that if users upload any photo or video in high quality before June 1, 2021, then those won’t be counted toward your Google account storage. Google will also delete the content of accounts inactive for more than two years starting June 1.
Google lets you upload any photo or video in three sizes – Original quality, High quality, and Express. Once the provided 15GB storage space gets full, you will either have to buy the Google One subscription for additional storage or delete some photos for some extra space. The basic subscription of Google One offers users 100GB storage space for Rs 130 per month or Rs 1,300 on a yearly basis. For 200GB storage space, you will be required to pay Rs 210 per month or 2,100 per annum. For 2TB, the price of Google One in India is Rs 650 per month and Rs 6,500 per year. For 10TB, the price is Rs 3,250 per month.
