India Considers Easing Market Share Caps for UPI Payments Operators

The regulator that oversees India’s popular UPI rail payments is considering relaxing a proposed market share cap for operators like Google Pay, PhonePe and Paytm because it grapples with enforcing the restrictions, two people accustomed to the matter told TechCrunch.

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which is regulated by the Indian central bank, is considering increasing the market share that UPI operators can hold to greater than 40%, said two of the people, requesting anonymity because the knowledge is confidential. The regulator had earlier proposed a 30% market share limit to encourage competition within the space.

UPI has change into the most well-liked option to send and receive money in India, with the mechanism processing over 12 billion transactions monthly. Walmart-backed PhonePe has about 48% market share by volume and 50% by value, while Google Pay has 37.3% share by volume.

Once an industry heavyweight, Paytm’s market share has fallen to 7.2% from 11% late last yr amid regulatory challenges.

According to several industry executives, the NPCI’s increase in market share limits is more likely to be a controversial move as many UPI providers were counting on regulatory motion to curb the dominance of PhonePe and Google Pay.

NPCI, which has previously declined to comment on market share, didn’t reply to a request for comment on Thursday.

The regulator originally planned to implement the market share caps in January 2021 but prolonged the deadline to January 1, 2025. The regulator has struggled to seek out a workable option to implement its proposed market share caps.

The stakes are high, especially for PhonePe, India’s Most worthy fintech startup, valued at $12 billion.

Sameer Nigam, co-founder and CEO of PhonePe, said last month that the startup cannot go public “if there is uncertainty on regulatory issues.”

“If you buy a share at Rs 100 and value it assuming we have 48-49% market share, there is uncertainty whether it will come down to 30% and when,” Nigam told a fintech conference last month. “We are reaching out to them (the regulator) whether they can find another way to at least address any concerns they have or tell us what the list of concerns is,” he added.