Walmart-owned PhonePe Enables Online Payments for 80 Lakh Merchants in 18 Months under RBI Scheme

Strategic Insights -

In a significant development for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in India, the Walmart-owned fintech company PhonePe has enabled online payments for 80 lakh merchants in the last 18 months as part of the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) scheme. The PIDF scheme was set up to subsidize the cost of Points of Sale (PoS) infrastructure in tier-III to tier-VI towns and North Eastern states of the country. PhonePe's data showed that merchants in Assam were the fastest to adopt online payments technology, with over 2.5 lakh merchants coming onboard in 2022 as compared to 10,000 in 2020.

Key Takeaways:

  • PhonePe enabled online payments for 80 lakh merchants in 18 months under RBI's PIDF scheme, which subsidizes the cost of PoS infrastructure in tier-III to tier-VI towns and North Eastern states.
  • Merchants in Assam were the fastest to adopt online payments technology, with over 2.5 lakh merchants coming onboard in 2022 as compared to 10,000 in 2020.
  • The state of Assam has seen the highest adoption of online payments, followed by Tripura, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Sikkim, and Mizoram.
  • Online and offline transactions in the region rose to over 2 crore in the first quarter of 2023 compared to 1 lakh in the first quarter of 2018.
  • PhonePe plans to leverage its existing infrastructure to bring merchants onto the government's e-commerce platform, Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC).
  • The company aims to launch a Smart Speaker that will provide payment alerts to merchants upon receiving the payment, with plans to expand to more cities.

Statistics:

  • 80 lakh merchants enabled online payments in 18 months under RBI's PIDF scheme.
  • Over 2.5 lakh merchants in Assam adopted online payments technology in 2022, as compared to 10,000 in 2020.
  • Online and offline transactions in the region rose to over 2 crore in the first quarter of 2023 compared to 1 lakh in the first quarter of 2018.
  • PhonePe has digitized 3.2 crore merchants across the country.
  • The company aims to expand its Smart Speaker service to more cities.

Sources:

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