It is surprising that it has been 2.5 years since Google Pay launched in India, and they still have not implemented contact search properly inside the application. How hard can it be to map the contact name you have set in your phonebook with the person’s UPI id? Google owns Android and all the contact data that comes with it.

See what happens when you type “dad”, “mom” on Google Pay. Now compare with PhonePe’s search.

Here is me searching for my brother on both Google Pay, and PhonePe.

Google Pay vs Phonpe

My brother’s nickname is Captain, if that is not clear. See how PhonePe searches for the keyword “Captain” returns the result, and even shows the real name as confirmation, while Google Pay search fails.

Google Pay’s success rate when it comes to transactions is far behind Phonepe’s. The least they can do is fix their user experience. A clutter-free homepage is good, but you expect more from a company like Google.

Update: Google Pay has fixed this now.

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