In an event in New Delhi, Truecaller today announced a couple of partnership to boost up its presence in India. Further, the App has also introduced ‘Truecaller 8’ which brings in a bunch of features such as Truecaller Pay, Flash Messages, Google Duo integration and more. While the two partnership with Airtel and ICICI Bank is specific to India, the new app update is applicable globally.
Starting with the Truecaller 8, the company has announced a strategic agreement to integrate Google Duo which is a video calling app from Google. Truecaller claims that the new Google Duo integration has been built to be fast and reliable, with a single button push for connecting with other users. Truecaller integration with Google Duo will be available in the coming months for Android and iOS as a permission-based service, where users will be able to opt-in and out at any time.
Apart from that, the new Truecaller 8 brings in SMS integration which will allow you to who’s SMS’ing you and filter out all spam messages. As per the company, about 15 percent of the total SMS sent globally are Spam SMS. Interestingly, this 15 percent actually represents 1.2 trillion spam messages.
Another feature named as ‘Flash Messaging’ will allow you you to send quick pre-defined messages to any Truecaller user to let them know if you’re in distress, you’re on your way, your location, or that you’ve reached home.
Lastly, we now have Truecaller pay which will allow anyone in India to send and receive money securely over their mobile phone, courtesy Truecaller’s latest partnership with ICICI Bank.
Coming to the partnership with ICICI Bank, Truecaller aims to power its app ecosystem with the new UPI based mobile payment service. Truecaller Pay which is introduced in Truecaller 8 will allow one to instantly create a UPI ID, send money to any UPI ID or a mobile number registered with the BHIM app. Further, It will also enable users to recharge their mobile number from within the Truecaller app itself. Moreover, any Truecaller user, including non-ICICI Bank customers can link their bank account of any bank (participating in UPI) to create a UPI id and instantly make payments in a safe and secure manner.
In order to access Truecaller Pay, one can simply go to ‘Send money through UPI’ tab on Truecaller app’s profile page. For the security, all the transactions will go through two-factor authentication, as per RBI guidelines. For non-ICICI Bank users, one can transact through Truecaller Pay by creating a new UPI ID.
Lastly, Truecaller also collaborated with Bharti Airtel to introduce “Airtel Truecaller ID” which essentially extends the caller ID feature of Truecaller to Airtel’s non-data users using feature phones. In other words, the caller’s details will be delivered to users via Flash SMS before the call hits the user’s mobile. The service will be rolled out pan India on all feature phones having an Airtel SIM inside. As per the latest IDC report about mobile phone market in India, about 65% of India’s more than one billion mobile phone subscribers still use feature phones.