Fintech startup BharatPe announced that it has processed $830 million-worth UPI transactions by clocking 106 million transactions in March.
BharatPe, with an 8.8% market share, said that it has retained the number three position in the UPI person-to-merchant category.
Currently Paytm and PhonePe lead the UPI payments vertical in the country, followed by Google Pay.
The company has recorded a 7x growth in volume of UPI transactions from April 2020 to March 2021 on the back of increased adoption of digital payments across lower-tier cities and towns, and also as customers moved to safer and more convenient modes of transaction in view of the pandemic.
A significant rise in e-commerce sales in the backdrop of the pandemic has also aided digital payments firms processing more online transactions.
BharatPe’s UPI payments vertical also grew by 23.7% from February to March 2021.
“The pandemic accelerated the growth of digital payments in the country. Infact, we saw all our business verticals grow manifold over the last one year… Our growth in UPI P2M category has been driven by the rise in the adoption of digital payments across tier-1, 2 and beyond towns and cities,” BharatPe Group President Suhail Sameer said.
Sameer added that to cater to the increased demand, BharatPe expanded its footprint from 30 to 100 cities during the last 12 months.
“We are focused on creating awareness about digital payments and bringing the new-age Fintech services and credit offerings to the last mile in India and hence, will be further adding another 100 cities to our presence in FY22,” Sameer said.
He further said that the company aims to expand its merchant network by adding 4 million merchants to its existing list of 6 million by the end of 2021.
“We are confident that we will be able to positively impact millions of more businesses in the new fiscal with our range of existing and upcoming fintech products, especially curated to address the requirements of the merchant community,” Sameer said.
India has seen a phenomenal growth in digital payments over the last one year. UPI payments have more than doubled from April 2020 and it has aided the country achieve the tag of the “world’s biggest real-time digital payments market”, outpacing China and the US, as per a report by ACI Worldwide and Global Data.
The report also highlights that by 2025, digital payments are expected to account for over 70% of overall payments volume in India, leaving cash and cheques at below 30%.
