PhonePe outruns BHIM in UPI-based payment, to launch version 2.0

Flipkart's UPI-based payment platform PhonePe has claimed to surpass the government's Bharat Interface for Mobile or BHIM app with a 45 percent share of the total transactions processed in August. According to an ET report, PhonePe witnessed 2X surge in transaction in August as compared to May this year.

The company processed 7.47 million transactions in August from 3.5 million in May this year. PhonePe claims to achieve 66% month-on-month growth in volume during August. The growth of PhonePe is primarily driven by company’s aggressive tie-ups with online as well as offline merchants.

Bengaluru-based payment platform also plans to launch new features through UPI 2.0. The new version will drive more usage of PhonePe while making payment at brick & mortar and online stores.

PhonePe is now being used as a payment option at over 30 top online stores and plans to integrate with 15 retail chains across the country. Retail store chain Spencer’s, fast-food chain KFC and Café Coffee Day along with 2,600 Apollo Pharmacy stores and all Barista outlets in Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi and Ahmedabad have started accepting payment through PhonePe.

Online firms such as FreshMenu, RailYatri, AbhiBus, Box8 and TicketNew have integrated with PhonePe.

In December 2015, Sameer Nigam and Rahul Chari founded PhonePe, which was later acquired by Flipkart in April last year. Though it received its RBI licensing on 25 August 2014. It is essentially a payment system riding on UPI. But now it plans to cross-sell financial products across spectrums.

For easy payment navigation, PhonePe introduced the payment container to save debit and credit card and wallets. It essentially allows users to have all payment options stored at one place.

According to the latest data released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the total number of UPI transactions stood at 16.6 million in August, of which BHIM's share was 41% with around 6.8 million transactions.