BENGALURU: After peer-to-peer ( P2P ) and bill payments, Google Pay is looking to win over customers of smaller offline retailers or kirana stores. While Google had announced plans to partner with point-of-sale providers to onboard retail merchants, it is now piloting transactions based on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) to be made by consumers while making offline purchases, according to two people aware of the matter.“It will bring the convenience of card payments onto the smart phone—the only thing required here will be, instead of the card swipe, customers will have to share the mobile number at the billing counter,” said a top payment executive aware of the matter. Consumers will get a ‘collect’ request on their Google Pay application and make the payment by inserting the UPI PIN.Having emerged as one of the top three payment applications on UPI thanks to P2P and bill payments, Google’s offline strategy is designed to create an ecosystem of payment solutions for Indian consumers. For the technology giant, which is aiming to connect the Next Billion Users to the internet, India is a key market. By leveraging payments, the company is targeting a big chunk of the consumer-retail interface.“There are small-scale pilots that are being run across retail stores in the country. As of now there are no banner advertisements that are being done, only early adopters can test the product,” said one of the persons cited above. “The rollout will happen over the next few months.”Google has much of the backend in place for such an exercise.“The plan is to also run localised promotional campaigns for consumers in that area,” said one of the persons. “They have geo-tagged shops and can easily identify consumers in the surrounding area as well thereby offering targeted marketing campaigns.”Google’s plans are similar to the offline strategy of PhonePe, which is using MapMyIndia to target offline stores and promote UPI payments.“Our vision is to enable fast, seamless, and secure payments for our users anywhere, at any time, whether they are paying other users, buying products or services online , recharging mobile balance, paying for utilities or shopping at a retail outlet,” said Ambarish Kenghe, director, product management, Google Pay. “The offline ecosystem forms an important part of our objective to provide a seamless experience to users transacting with Google Pay.”After ecommerce payments, the next battle is widely expected to be fought on the offline payments front. Paytm, with its expansive network of merchants using Paytm QR, is expected to be challenged by Google Pay, Reliance Jio and PhonePe.“All eyes are on Reliance Jio, especially after what happened in telecom. What Jio wants to do in digital payments is being keenly observed by others,” said a payments industry expert. “Offline is the next big thing which will create the ultimate winner in the Indian payments ecosystem.”With its own integrated billing and payments offering for small merchants, Jio could disrupt offline payments.PhonePe chief executive officer Sameer Nigam has told ET that the company has partnered with MapMy-India to track retail merchants in the country and create an engagement platform for users with local kirana stores. Similar to Google Pay, Phone-Pe is also listing local merchants on its application. “The best part for Google is that the India fintech strategy is not defined by revenues. It is more about creating that experience for the consumers and enhance stickiness,” said the expert.