Newer companies rise on UPI leaderboard, Navi now the fourth largest

Even as fintech majors including PhonePe, Google Pay, and Paytm continue to dominate the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) ecosystem, newer firms like Navi and Flipkart-backed Super.money are growing at a breakneck pace, processing a significant share of the industry’s payments.

 

For instance, Sachin Bansal-owned Navi has climbed the UPI leaderboard to become the fourth largest player in the ecosystem, in just over a year since the launch of its UPI operations.

 

The company processed 157.51 million transactions in October, overtaking Bengaluru-based Cred, which recorded 152.28 million transactions in the same month.

 

Super.money, which launched operations in July, processed 49.68 million transactions in October. This was twice the number of transactions in September when the firm processed 25.75 million transactions.

 

In a previous interaction with Business Standard, the company’s founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Prakash Sikaria said the firm plans to be among the top five companies on UPI by the end of the year. At present, the fintech firm is ranked 12th on the UPI leaderboard.

 

However, a major portion of the growth in acquiring customers on UPI comes on the back of significant cash burn for companies. Firms offer cashbacks, rewards, and coupons to attract customers.

 

Companies do not earn revenues from processing UPI payments since these transactions remain free for users.

 

To provide perspective, PhonePe, the largest player on UPI today, earmarked over Rs 950 crore as rewards for customers to use the platform in financial year 2019 (FY19).

 

After the Bengaluru-based firm acquired a significant user base in the market, it cut down on these rewards, spending just over Rs 15 crore in incentives in FY24.

 

As of October, PhonePe’s market share on UPI was pegged at 47.67 per cent, followed by Google Pay and Paytm with 37.39 per cent and 7.02 per cent share, respectively.