PhonePe beats Google Pay, Paytm in Jan; emerges top UPI player for 2nd straight month

Flipkart-backed PhonePe has again topped the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) chart in terms of transactions worth Rs 1.91 lakh crore, which is about 41 per cent of total UPI transactions done in January. PhonePe, with transaction volume of 968.72 million, has continued its leading streak for the second month in a row.

The latest data put out by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) says PhonePe's transactions rose 7 per cent and their value by 5 per cent in January. Following PhonePe was Google Pay with 853.53 million transactions worth Rs 1.71 lakh crore.

Paytm stood at third with 281.18 million transactions worth Rs 33,910 crore. Amazon Pay, Bhim and WhatsApp payments accounted for UPI transaction value worth Rs 4,004 crore, Rs 7,463 crore and Rs 36 crore, respectively.

In total, as many as 2.3 billion transactions amounting to Rs 4.2 lakh crore were registered via Unified Payment Interface (UPI) in January. Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant termed the feat as "phenomenal". He said it took UPI 3 years to cross 1 billion transactions a month, while the next billion came in less than a year.

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"Phenomenal! UPI recorded 2.3 billion transactions worth Rs 4.3 trillion in Jan 2021. On a YOY basis, UPI's transaction value jumped 76.5% while transaction value jumped nearly 100%," he tweeted.

In December, PhonePe saw 902 million transactions worth Rs 1.82 lakh crore, while Google Pay witnessed 854 million transactions for Rs 1.76 lakh crore, the NPCI data suggests.

NPCI in November 2020 had capped the volume of transactions via Unified Payments Interface (UPI) on third-party apps at 30 per cent, which it said was meant to protect the payments channel from risks as it grows in scale.

However, this has prompted many to criticise the NPCI for stifling private competition. The NPCI clarified that this will help to address the risks and protect the UPI ecosystem as it further scales up.

All third-party players like including PhonePe, Paytm and GooglePay, will have two years from January 2021 to comply with the transaction volume cap in a phased manner.

Also read: PhonePe beats Google Pay, Paytm; emerges top UPI app in December