Google’s India-focused mobile payment service processed a billion transactions in the first year of operation, with more than 30 million customers using the system each month, CEO Sundar Pichai (pictured) said.

Speaking on parent company Alphabet’s Q3 earnings call the executive confirmed Google plans to export features developed for its India-only Tez app into new markets around the world.

The wider use of features developed for the app comes as little surprise, as a number of reports surfaced earlier this year stating Google was in the process of assessing new markets for the app itself.

Tez was developed specifically for the Indian mobile payments market and launched in September 2017. It used the government’s standardised interface for payment processing and offered a wider number of services than Google’s standard Android Pay product.

Google’s entry into the sector came at a time when mobile payments systems were enjoying rapid growth, driven partly by government initiatives to reduce the use of physical cash in the country.

However, since then a number of payment providers have reported a decline in usage blamed on authorities tightening data regulations.

In August Tez was rebranded Google Pay, the same name now used for the company to cover all of its payments operations including the retail service formerly known as Android Pay and its various online payment services and e-wallets.