PhonePe eyes replicating UPI success via diversification

Fintech major PhonePe is strengthening its presence across key financial verticals—payments, lending, insurance, and wealth management—as it aims to replicate its success in the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) space across other domains.

- AJINKYA KAWALE

Backed by Walmart, PhonePe plans to leverage its scale on UPI to drive cross-sell opportunities—a strategy widely adopted by consumer-focused fintech companies. However, what sets PhonePe apart is its vast user base.

At present, the overall user base of PhonePe is over 500 million. Of these, its merchant base is over 40 million.

"Given our strength in UPI, it makes sense for us to enable two key things: providing consumers with access to credit, and empowering merchants with higher spending capabilities through credit instruments," said Deep Agrawal, head of payments at PhonePe.

Company executives who Business Standard spoke with said digital payments in the form of UPI coupled with innovations from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) in the form of RuPay credit cards, credit line on UPI and UPI Lite, among others, enables the firm to extend its offerings on both sides of its business—consumers and merchants.