The Countrywide Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the governing human body overseeing the country’s widely utilised Unified Payments Interface (UPI) cell payment technique, is set to interact with a variety of fintech startups this thirty day period to produce a method to address the growing industry dominance of PhonePe and Google Shell out in the UPI ecosystem.

NPCI executives prepare to meet with associates from CRED, Flipkart, Fampay and Amazon between other gamers to focus on their critical initiatives aimed at boosting UPI transactions on their respective applications and to have an understanding of the assistance they call for, people today familiar with the issue informed TechCrunch.

UPI, created by a coalition of Indian banking institutions, has become the most well-known way Indians transact on the internet, processing more than 10 billion transactions regular.

The new conferences are part of an increasing work to handle concerns lifted by lawmakers and marketplace gamers relating to the market share concentration of Google Fork out and PhonePe, which jointly account for just about 86% of UPI transactions by quantity, up from 82.5% at the end of December. Walmart owns additional than three-fourths of PhonePe.

Paytm, the 3rd-largest UPI participant, has viewed its sector share drop to 9.1% by the stop of March, down from 13% at the conclusion of 2023, subsequent a clampdown by the Reserve Financial institution of India (RBI).

An overview of India’s UPI ecosystem. (Picture: Macquarie)

The discussion follows the central financial institution expressing “displeasure” to the NPCI over the expanding duopoly in the payments area, a particular person common with the matter mentioned. An NPCI spokesperson declined to remark.

In February, a parliamentary panel in India urged the authorities to assistance the progress of domestic fintech gamers that can present alternatives to the Walmart-backed PhonePe and Google Spend applications.

The NPCI has very long advocated for restricting the industry share of personal firms participating in the UPI ecosystem to 30%. Nevertheless, it has prolonged the deadline for companies to comply with this directive to the close of December 2024. The organization faces a distinctive obstacle in enforcing this directive: It believes that it at this time lacks a complex system to do so, TechCrunch earlier noted.

The RBI is also weighing an incentive strategy to create a far more favorable aggressive subject for rising UPI players, another human being familiar with the make a difference said. Indian day by day Financial Situations independently reported Wednesday that the NPCI is encouraging fintech providers to supply incentives to their buyers, advertising and marketing the use of their respective applications for creating UPI transactions.