Amazon and Meta are among the big companies set to lobby India\u2019s payments body over the dominance of Walmart-owned PhonePe and Google Pay in the country\u2019s fast-growing instant payments network.<\/p>\n
Executives representing platforms including Amazon Pay, WhatsApp, CRED, MobiKwik, and Flipkart\u2019s Super.money are scheduled to meet the National Payments Corporation of India on Thursday, TechCrunch has learned. The body operates the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), India\u2019s instant payments system that processes billions of transactions each month.<\/p>\n
The meeting comes over a year after India deferred plans to cap the market share of UPI apps at 30% until December 31, 2026, a measure that would have limited any single app\u2019s share of UPI transactions. That delay has effectively allowed PhonePe and Google Pay to retain their dominant positions, intensifying concerns among players with smaller shares about their ability to compete.<\/p>\n
PhonePe and Google Pay combined accounted for roughly 80% of the 22.6 billion transactions on the UPI network in March, data from NPCI shows. That scale far outpaces rivals such as Paytm, Flipkart\u2019s Super.money, CRED, Amazon Pay, and MobiKwik.<\/p>\n
PhonePe said this week it has crossed 700 million registered users and 50 million merchants across India, underlining the scale that has helped entrench its position. The merchants that accept it span more than 98% of the country\u2019s postal codes, highlighting the reach that smaller rivals say is difficult to replicate.<\/p>\n
An agenda reviewed by TechCrunch shows participants, including Amazon and Meta, are expected to raise concerns about user acquisition practices, product design, and monetization within the UPI ecosystem. Among the proposals are restrictions on how dominant apps onboard users and use contact data, calls for fair access to features such as autopay and payment mandates, and requests for incentives and regulatory support to help emerging players compete.<\/p>\n
Because these companies find it harder to compete with the dominant instant pay players, they are lobbying the regulatory body to help them. However, the NPCI, which operates under the Reserve Bank of India\u2019s supervision, has struggled to find ways to curb dominance without disrupting services used by hundreds of millions of users.<\/p>\n