Google announced on Tuesday that it is introducing UPI autopay as a payment option for subscription-based purchases on Google Play in India. This means UPI autopay will help customers make use of any UPI application that supports the feature.
Saurabh Agarwal, Head of Google Play Retail and Payments Activation-India, Vietnam, Australia, and New Zealand, said, “We are always looking at adding popular and effective forms of payment around the world to ensure people can pay for apps and in-app content conveniently. With the introduction of UPI autopay on the platform, we aim to extend the convenience of UPI to subscription-based purchases, helping many more people access helpful and delightful services — while enabling local developers to grow their subscription-based businesses on Google Play.”
This update comes after Google enabled UPI as a payment method for buying apps, games, and in-app content through UPI in 2019. Now this option has been expanded to recurrant subscriptions as well.
Google clarified that this will not bring any changes to their billing system, customers will access UPI autoplay from the Google Play billing system, thus, Google will collect 15-30 per cent commission fee.
CCI imposed a fine of ₹936 crore on Google’s PlayStore policies in October and asked Google to allow third-party payments for in-app purchases. In light of this ruling, Google has indefinitely suspended its policy enforcement, which would require developers to use to use the Play Store billing system for user transactions in the country.