India has postponed the enforcement of market share limits for digital payment methods under the UPI system until December 2026, benefiting Google Pay and Walmart-backed PhonePe.
The initial proposal from November 2020 aimed to restrict any single company to a 30 percent market share of UPI transactions by the end of 2024.
PhonePe and Google Pay dominate the UPI ecosystem, with a combined 84.8 percent share, processing over 13.1 billion transactions in November 2024.
The delay is intended to foster ecosystem growth and allow smaller players like Paytm, Navi, Cred, and Amazon Pay to expand.
NPCI also lifted restrictions on WhatsApp Pay’s UPI user onboarding, Reuters news report said.
