PhonePe overtakes BHIM in the UPI battle; accounts for 45% share in August’17

PhonePe, the Flipkart owned payment gateway, is now the largest user of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) overtaking Government of India’s BHIM with a 45% market share in August’17. PhonePe more than doubled the number of UPI transactions to 7.47 million in August from 3.5 million in May and its share rose steadily from 39% in July and 36% in June. Sameer Nigam, CEO of PhonePe, said that “We have already integrated around 30 of the top 100 online merchants on the PhonePe app and in the offline space we are going live in 15 pan-India chains this quarter”. The firm is on an overdrive to sign on new merchants, both offline and online, ahead of the festive season which is just around the corner. Online firms such as FreshMenu, RailYatri, AbhiBus, Box8 and TicketNew have integrated with PhonePe while offline players such as Apollo Pharmacy, Barista, Spencer’s Retail and Café Coffee Day are offering PhonePe as a payment option.

The payment gateway recently introduced the payment container which allows customers to save debit and credit card along with wallets so that they can have all their payment options stored at one place. It already offers a reminder service to its users but with the launch of the UPI 2.0, it is looking forward to enabling auto debit feature, which will simplify bills and other payments such as equated monthly instalments.