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India again delays rules to break PhonePe-Google Pay duopoly
Manish Singh @refsrc
India has once again pushed back a contentious plan to limit big technology companies’ control of the nation’s digital payments system, extending a regulatory uncertainty that has weighed on the sector for years.
The National Payments Corporation of India said on Tuesday it would extend the deadline for implementing a 30% cap on any company’s share of transactions on the Unified Payments Interface, or UPI, the country’s ubiquitous digital payments network, to December 31, 2026. The decision provides temporary relief to Walmart-backed PhonePe and Google Pay, which together handle more than 85% of transactions on UPI.
The network, which processes over 13 billion transactions monthly, has become the backbone of India’s digital economy since its launch eight years ago.
The regulator, which operates under the supervision of India’s central bank and is backed by more than 50 retail banks, has struggled to find ways to implement the market share restrictions without disrupting service for hundreds of millions of Indians who rely on these payment apps daily.
Throughout this year, officials held extensive discussions with industry leaders about ways to enforce the caps, but found no feasible solution that wouldn’t risk disrupting the consumer experience, according to people familiar with the discussions.
Source: techcrunch.com
