Google Pay to get Hinglish Support, Bill Splitting Feature, and more

Google announced several India-specific features as part of its Google vision for India 2021. Among the apps, Google Pay is getting a ton of easy-to-use features to help digitize the economy. For example, the digital payments app will soon have a "Hinglish" language option, a combination of Hindi and English. The new option will sit with the existing options of Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, and Telegu. The company also hopes to make the app smarter by adding "speech to text" to allow users to use voice input to pay directly to another user's bank account.

Users can enter the account numbers in Hindi or English in the app to enter the account number, which is then confirmed with the sender before initiating payment. Another key feature that he announced is Bill Split, which helps users divide and settle shared expenses. Google Pay will also add a "MyShop" feature aimed at micro-entrepreneurs and merchants. The tool will be available to merchants using the Google Pay for Business application to help them "digitize" their journey ahead. The company says the addition of the new language option attempts to make interactions even "more intuitive and natural through Google Pay.

As part of the company's Google vision for India 2021, customers are also getting an end-to-end vaccine reserve pilot stream enabled for Google Assistant in India. The tool will help users book COVID-19 vaccines with the help of Google Assistant in multiple language options. Its objective is to help eradicate the complexity and barriers in the stockpile of COVID-19 vaccines in the country. Google also announced a series of weather-related features to "help surface timely and important information, and ensure people's safety." These include a partnership with the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) to provide accurate weather forecasts. In addition, people can now see the air quality from their nearest station by typing in queries like "Air quality near me" or "Air quality Delhi."