The Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the flagship payments platform of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), has recorded over two billion transactions in October. And along with this, digital payments platforms PhonePe and Paytm have also crossed new milestones.
Walmart-backed PhonePe said it has crossed the 250 million registered user milestone. The company reported over 100 million monthly active users (MAU) and 2.3 billion app sessions in October 2020.
Paytm, for its part, said it is enabling postpaid services to Android Mini App Store and POS (point-of-sale) devices expanding the reach of micro-credit to wider payment segments. The company has 7 million users for the postpaid service and is on its way to registering a total of 15 million users by the end of the current financial year.
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PhonePe goes past Google Pay for the first time
Google Pay, which had been a market leader of sorts, was not the one that not pushed the volume of UPI transactions. PhonePe recorded 835 million UPI transactions in October, while Google Pay had about 820 million transactions.
Paytm recorded about 245 million transactions, and Amazon Pay was around 125 million.
PhonePe, in a statement, said that it had taken the “market leading position” with more than 40% of the market share in UPI.
"We are thrilled to have crossed the 250 million user milestone,” Sameer Nigam, CEO and founder of PhonePe said in the statement. “We are on a mission to make digital payments a way of life for every Indian citizen, and our next target is to cross 500 million registered users by December 2022,” he added.
Google Pay has dropped to the second position, and analysts say this is because of weak penetration on the merchant side.
PhonePe has a range of financing services too, including 600,000 insurance policies. PhonePe has been helped a great deal by Flipkart’s festival sale and the growth of fantasy sports app Dream 11.
Paytm aims for 15 million users
Another digital platforms plater, Paytm has achieved 7 million users for its postpaid service and said that it was on course to hit 15 million users milestone by the end of the current financial year.
PayTM is also expanding its partnership with the developers’ community for its recently launched Android Mini App Store. This move, Paytm hopes, will help businesses and consumers as it will give them an extra option to choose to buy now and pay later service.
Paytm said that it is preparing to integrate Postpaid with more than 2 lakh Paytm’s Android POS devices to purchase on credit. It is already available for select items such as recharges and bill payments, online payments for internet apps, and buying home essentials from Kirana stores.
Paytm Postpaid supports bill payments facilities available on Paytm, Paytm Mall, and online payments at internet apps such as Uber, Myntra, Lenskart, Gaana, Pepperfry, Patanjali, Spencer's, etc.
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