The deadline to adhere to the National Payments Corporation of India’s (NPCI) 30 percent market share cap on platforms using the Unified Payments Interface has been extended by two years.
UPI
- The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) created the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), an instant real-time payment system that makes interbank transactions easier.
- The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) controls the interface, which operates by immediately moving money between two bank accounts on a mobile platform.
NPCI plan for UPI
- The market cap guidelines were initially scheduled to go into effect in January 2021 by NPCI.
- It was designed to prevent any one payments app from handling more than 30% of UPI transactions in a given month.
Why extension?
The extension is viewed as a huge relief for Google Pay and PhonePe, which are now in control of the majority of the UPI market share and are supported by Walmart and Flipkart.
How could it impact UPI platforms?
- Industry observers think the decision will give PhonePe and Google Pay, which together account for more than 80% of UPI’s market share, a boost.
- However, the extension can be viewed as a natural setback for services like Paytm and WhatsApp Pay.
- In terms of UPI market share as of October, Paytm held a 15% share.
- Comparatively, GooglePay accounted for about 35% of the market, while PhonePe held a 47% share.
UPI performance
- The Reserve Bank of India’s Payment Vision 2025 projects that UPI will increase by an average annualised 50 percent.
- The UPI transaction value for the month of November came in at Rs 11.90 lakh crore after reaching a new high of Rs 12.11 lakh crore in October.
- The number of transactions, which stood at 7.3 billion in October, did not change in November.