Digital transaction traffic bounces back on PhonePe following service outage due to Yes Bank crisis

Digital payments platform PhonePe on Sunday said its transactions and user traffic have bounced back to normal, after being affected for 24 hours due to restrictions on Yes Bank.

Over 25 million customers used the PhonePe app on Saturday showing their trust in the platform, according to a statement by the company.

The digital payments platform has bounced back hard in the past 24 hours. The platform processed over Rs 4,000 crore worth of transactions in 24 hours and saw its largest-ever volume of user traffic in a single day (with over 70 million app sessions), it said.

PhonePe saw a service outage for nearly 24 hours, which started immediately after the RBI placed Yes Bank on moratorium on March 5.

The PhonePe team worked overnight with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and new UPI partner ICICI bank to ensure all its services are up within a day, the company said.

All merchant payment settlements were restored by Friday noon and all consumer wallet, credit and debit card payments were restored by 3 pm.

All UPI services were restored by Friday night, with PhonePe users continuing to use their UPI @ybl handles. This ensured that there was a seamless transition for all of its 20 crore customers, it added.

Sameer Nigam, founder and CEO of PhonePe, said, "Friday was an extraordinarily difficult situation with little precedence. We are grateful to RBI, NPCI, Yes Bank and ICICI for working collectively to ensure that millions of our customers and merchants were not inconvenienced a minute longer than necessary."