MONEY
Deadline for market share cap of digital payments firms deferred by two years
- IBJ Bureau
- Jan 01, 2025
India on Tuesday delayed the implementation of market share caps for a popular digital payments method by two years. The move will benefit Google Pay and Walmart-backed PhonePe.
According to the proposal, first made in November 2020, digital payments firms would not be allowed to hold more than 30 per cent share of the volume of transactions processed via the country’s popular Unified Payments Interface (UPI).
The mandate, which was to take effect from the end of 2024, will now kick in at the end of December 2026, according to a statement from National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), a quasi-regulator.
Google Pay and Walmart-backed PhonePe are the two most widely used apps in India to make UPI payments. Other players include fintech companies such as Paytm, Navi, Cred and Amazon Pay.
PhonePe’s share of UPI payments stood at 47.8 per cent in November 2024, while Google Pay’s share was at 37 per cent, according to regulatory data. The two firms processed a combined 13.1 billion transactions in November, the data showed.
NPCI also lifted a cap on WhatsApp Pay’s UPI product onboarding users, according to a separate statement on Tuesday.
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