Truecaller today announced that it is adding support for peer-to-peer payments for its Indian users. In addition, the company revealed its new logo and announced a new version of its app that comes integrated with Google Duo and its spam SMS filtering.
First, let’s talk about Truecaller Pay — the peer-to-peer payments system from Truecaller. Developed in partnership with ICICI bank, Truecaller Pay will allow Truecaller users to easily send money to each other. The technology is based on UPI, Unified Payment Interface, and will work with all banks that support it. Since one can easily send money by simply entering the receiver’s UPI ID or mobile number, Truecaller Pay removes a lot of friction from the whole process of sending money.
Going forward, Truecaller will now also feature integration with Google Duo. Google launched its video calling app amid much publicity last year in India and other developing countries, but the video calling app has failed to take off in the country. By integrating Duo with Truecaller, Google’s video calling app — which now also supports voice calling — should gain some much-needed traction in the country. The feature will be added to Truecaller’s app for both iOS and Android in the coming months, with users also being given the option of opting out of this integration.
Lastly, Truecaller is also partnering with AirTel — the largest carrier in India — to bring caller ID feature to feature phone users in the country.
“Airtel and Truecaller will enable millions of feature phone users to enjoy a ‘smartphone like’ experience in offline mode and add to their mobile experience. We hope this partnership will encourage other global developers to innovate for the feature phone segment, which still forms a large part of the overall market in countries like India.” – Raj Pudipeddi, Director – Consumer Business & Chief Marketing Officer, Airtel
Other improvements introduced in the latest version of the app include sending flash messages and being able to share your location with other Truecaller users.
