Google introduces UPI payment option for YouTube Premium, Music and more

So, while you can manually feed in your card details and make a purchase, now you can directly pay from your bank using UPI ID.

So, while you can manually feed in your card details and make a purchase, now you can directly pay from your bank using UPI ID. (REUTERS)

In case you haven't subscribed to Google's YouTube Premium service and are planning to do so, the company is making it easier for you to pay for the subscription. The audio and video streaming service has introduced UPI as a form of payment for both YouTube and YouTube Music. This new option for payment comes in addition to the credit and debit card options. So, while you can manually feed in your card details and make a purchase, now you can directly pay from your bank using UPI ID. Yes, this also means you can pay using your Google Pay account.

In addition, the UPI payment service can be used to purchase monthly or quarterly prepaid subscriptions for YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Premium. Buying and renting movies, paying for features like SuperChat is also possible via the UPI payment method.

UPI payments system has gained quite a lot of popularity ever since its pilot launch in April 2016 by the Reserve Bank of India. The payment system is developed by National Payments Corporation of India or NCPI and now found on several apps including Paytm, Google Pay, Amazon, PhonePe and more. Even WhatsApp now comes with a UPI payment option.

On a related note, Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has said that Google Pay could roll out globally as well, looking at the rising adoption of the service in the country. As per the report, the Google Pay service hit 67 million monthly active users in India in September last year. "We've had a lot of traction with our payments product over the past 18 months. We had a tremendously successful launch in India from which we learnt a lot of features, and we are bringing that and we are revamping our payments products globally," Pichai said during the recent earnings call.