PhonePe hits $1 trillion in total payment value; secures payment aggregator license

Walmart-backed payments app PhonePe has said it reached an annualised Total Payment Value (TPV) of $1 trillion (Rs 84 lakh crore) led by UPI transactions.

The payments firm also received in-principal approval for its Payments Aggregator license from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and will use it to further scale its payment solutions and expand outreach to small businesses, it said in the statement.

It will also be make significant investments in new businesses which include insurance and wealth management. 

“Our focus on simplifying customer experience  while ensuring fast, secure and reliable transactions, has helped us win the trust of millions of Indian users,” said Sonika Chandra, Head of Consumer Business at PhonePe. 

PhonePe currently works with over 35 million offline merchants across Tier II cities and beyond. It claims to hold over 50% market share by value for UPI payments in the country. Other players in the UPI space include Google Pay, Paytm and Amazon Pay. 

The company founded in 2015 was hived-off from the parent Flipkart Group in 2020. Since then, it has raised a commitment of $700 million from Walmart, the largest shareholder of Flipkart across multiplied tranches and raised $350 million from General Atlantic in January.

The company also raised $100 million from returning investors Tiger Global as well as Ribbit Capital and TVS Capital Funds at a valuation of $12 billion in February.

PhonePe also moved its domicile to India in October from Singapore, costing its investors Rs 8000 crore in taxes. It is also said to be evaluating plans to list on the bourses, though the founders have not set a definitive timeline for the same. 

The payments firm also claims to have a registered user base of nearly 45 crore overall and claims to process 45% of transactions on the Bharat Bill Pay System (BBPS).