Pine Labs ties up with Google Pay for offline payments push

Digital retail payments platform Pine Labs has tied up with Google Pay to enable payments on the Unified Payments Interface platform at its 3.3 lakh point of sale (PoS) terminals across cities, the firms said in a statement.

The partnership will allow offline merchants using Pine Labs branded PoS terminals to process payments using Google Pay. This involves a two-step process where a merchant initiates a payment request using a Google Pay user’s mobile number, which is then authenticated by the user, the statement added.

“We are excited to collaborate with Google and bring the convenience of UPI at point of sale for Google Pay users through our platform in India. Last year, over 100 million customers bought products and services from our merchant network. With Google Pay, we expect to reach many new groups of customers across the country,” said Vicky Bindra, chief executive of Pine Labs in the statement.

The tie-up with Pine Labs will also increase Google Pay’s offline user base.

Temasek and Sequoia-backed Pine Labs enables online and offline retail transactions for over 100 brands.

It recently acquired Amazon and Sistema Asia-backed gift card technology company Qwikcilver for $110 million to leverage its gifting business, Pine Perks which covers 600 organisations across banking, insurance, fast-moving consumer goods and others.

According to reports in business daily Mint, Pine Labs is in talks to raise $75 million in a fresh round of funding from existing investors PayPal and Temasek at a valuation of $1.2 billion. Creating a strong business vertical in the gift card segment apart from adapting UPI will likely give the 20-year-old company better consumer reach.

Google Pay is among the top three payment services on the UPI platform, which is led by Paytm. Flipkart-owned PhonePe is the other contender.