– PhonePe has seen massive growth in merchant acceptance across the North East Region
– PhonePe has till date digitized 3.2 crore merchants across the country
New Delhi, NFAPost: PhonePe, India’s leading fintech platform, announced that it has digitized 80 lakh offline merchants as a part of the RBI PIDF (Payments Infrastructure Development Fund) scheme in the last eighteen months.
The Payments Infrastructure Development Fund was set up by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to subsidize deployment of Points of Sale (PoS) infrastructure (physical and digital modes) in Tier-3 to Tier-6 centres and North Eastern States of the country. With the PIDF scheme, PhonePe was able to double down and create digital payment infrastructure across the country, and digitize even far-flung terrains which had so far not been digitized.
The PhonePe Pulse data shows that PhonePe’s consistent efforts to educate, engage and empower merchants has led to phenomenal acceptance of digital payments in the North East Region (NER), which is one of the focus areas of PIDF also. PhonePe is accepted as a payment option across the toughest terrains of NER including far-flung towns such as the Changlang district in Arunachal Pradesh.
Assam witnessed the fastest adoption with 2.5+ lakh merchants in 2022 compared to just 10,000 merchants in 2020, followed by Tripura, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Sikkim, and Mizoram. Along with the acquisition rate, the transactions – both online and offline in the NER region have also seen a significant rise from less than 1 Lac transactions in Q1 2018 to 2+ crore transactions in Q1 this year.
Speaking on the development, PhonePe Head of Offline Business Vivek Lohcheb said PhonePe would like to thank the RBI for the creation of the PIDF scheme, effectively designing it for companies like PhonePe to invest in the digitisation of merchants across the country.
“In the past it was unviable for companies like us to spend money in rural areas as the market is very scattered, and there was a need to make significant investments in terms of manpower to digitize merchants in remote areas. The PIDF scheme has boosted that infrastructure and is helping us create universal acceptance in every nook and corner of the country,” said PhonePe Head of Offline Business Vivek Lohcheb.
As next steps, PhonePe plans to innovate in strengthening the payment experience of merchants with products like the Smart Speaker which will further improve the reliability of digital payments. The company also plans to use the same infrastructure to bring these merchants on the ONDC platform, while also enabling financial inclusion for even the smallest merchants, helping their business grow further.
About PhonePe:
PhonePe was founded in December 2015, and has emerged as India’s largest payments app, enabling digital inclusion for consumers and merchants alike. With 390+ million registered users, one in four Indians are now on PhonePe. The company has also successfully digitized 30+ million offline merchants spread across Tier 2,3,4 and beyond, covering 99% pin codes in the country.
PhonePe forayed into financial services in 2017, providing users with a safe and convenient option to buy 24-karat gold, and has recently also launched silver on its platform. Since then, PhonePe has introduced several Mutual Funds and Insurance products like tax-saving funds, liquid funds, international travel insurance, life insurance, COVID-19 insurance amongst others.
Using PhonePe, users can also send and receive money, recharge mobile, DTH, pay at stores and make all their utility payments. PhonePe was recently recognized as the Most Trusted Brand for Digital Payments as per the Brand Trust Report 2022 by Trust Research Advisory (TRA).
