After UPI, PhonePe dominates Bharat Bill Pay with 49% volume share in August

PhonePe App (PC- Twitter/@PhonePe_)

In a first, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) released company-wise data for the month of August 2021 on the Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS) – the platform that offers interoperable bill payment services for customers.

The data shows that after maintaining its lead in monthly United Payments Interface (UPI) transactions, digital payments company PhonePe now makes up almost half of the BBPS monthly volumes too.

BBPS is a payment ecosystem conceptualised by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and was set up as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the NPCI in 2015. BBPS enables customers to set up recurring payments for electricity, gas, DTH, insurance, loan repayments, FASTag Recharge, postpaid mobile bills, cable, and education fees.

In June this year, RBI also permitted mobile prepaid recharges as a biller category in BBPS which was implemented on August 31. The NPCI arm also got a leader at the helm after Former PayU top executive Noopur Chaturvedi was appointed as Bharat Bill Pay's CEO on August 13.

As per data on Bharat Bill Pay’s website, PhonePe makes up 49 percent of total BBPS volumes. The company executed 280 lakh transactions worth Rs 4,039 crore in August. In UPI transactions, PhonePe reported 45 percent share of overall volumes for the month of August.

The second-largest player is BillDesk with a volume share of 17 percent at 95.52 lakh transactions amounting to Rs 1,255.18 crore. Paytm Payments Bank is a close third with a 16 percent share of volumes, but the value of transactions is higher than executed by BillDesk. The company executed 92 lakh transactions worth Rs 2,256.93 crore.

While BBPS did not share data on transaction volumes and values for the previous months, data on ranking posted on the website shows that PhonePe has been the top player since May this year. As per data from April, PhonePe was the third-largest player after BillDesk and Paytm Payments Bank, before it overtook both players to capture the number 1 position.

Other players include HDFC Bank with the fourth-highest share in volumes, followed by Airtel Payments Bank. They are followed by Mobikwik, ICICI Bank, Euronet Services India, Infibeam Avenues, PayU, among others.