Walmart's PhonePe leads UPI payments, crosses 1 bn transactions in March

Walmart-owned PhonePe has crossed a billion UPI (unified payments interface) transactions, giving the digital payments firm further lead over its competitors such as Paytm, Google Pay and Amazon Pay. The Bengaluru-based firm said the total transactions for last month across UPI, cards and wallet were 1.3 billion in March.

The development comes at a time when UPI has broken a new record, crossing Rs 5 trillion in value in March across 2.73 billion transactions, according to the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which tweeted the data on Thursday. In March, the value was Rs 4.25 trillion for 2.29 billion transactions. In January, the value was Rs 4.31 trillion for 2.30 billion transactions.

When it comes to UPI payments, PhonePe, and Google Pay, have the lion’s share

PhonePe’s growth is an indication of strong user preference on the back of the highest end-to-end success rates on UPI payments, and its superior product experience. The growth has come on the back of the rapid expansion it has seen in offline payments across tier-2, tier-3 cities, having already digitised over 17.5 million kiranas. The company had previously announced its plans to digitize 25 million kiranas by the end of 2021.

PhonePe recently crossed the 280-million registered user milestone. It had over 100 million monthly active users generating over 1 billion digital payment transactions in January alone. It is targeting to surpass 500-million registered users by December 2022. The company’s annualised TPV (total payment volume) run-rate has crossed $300 billion.

The firm has also taken up six different sponsorships for the Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2021 for its biggest-ever marketing push.

READ MORE: PhonePe takes up six IPL 2021 sponsorships for its biggest marketing push

Last month, PhonePe’s rival Paytm had said that it has breached 1.2-billion monthly transactions, led by huge growth in its offline payment and financial services. The Paytm platform allows all payment methods, including wallets, UPI, cards, and net banking. The company also said it was seeing 15 per cent month-on-month growth in offline merchant payments. A Paytm spokesperson on Thursday said that the company recorded 1.4 billion transactions in March across all payment methods, including Paytm wallet, UPI, cards and net banking.

PhonePe is also betting big on FASTag is an electronic toll collection system, operated by the National Highway Authorities of India (NHAI). Based on radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, FASTag is affixed on the windscreen of vehicles. PhonePe and ICICI Bank on Thursday announced their partnership for the issuance of FASTag using UPI on the PhonePe App. This integration allows over 280 million registered PhonePe users to order and track the ICICI Bank FASTag conveniently on the app. PhonePe users, who may be customers of any bank, will have a fully digitised experience as they don’t have to visit physical stores or toll locations to buy a FASTag. ICICI Bank is the first bank to partner with PhonePe for the issuance of FASTag.

“This collaboration enables millions of PhonePe customers to easily apply for a new FASTag and get it delivered free of cost at their doorstep,” said Sudipta Roy, head, unsecured assets, ICICI Bank. “We believe that our latest tie-up with PhonePe will go a long way to make the availability of FASTag even more convenient, digital and frictionless.”

Deep Agrawal, head, payments, PhonePe said the firm has already seen a phenomenal response from the users recharging FASTag on its platform, with millions of customers recharging daily on the app. “In fact, FASTag recharge has witnessed a 145 per cent growth over the last 3 months indicating increased intercity travel as markets opened up post the lockdown,” said Agrawal.