Without Payments Bank, Paytm's UPI market share drops to 9%, lowest in four years

Paytm's UPI market share drops to 9%, lowest in 4 years

One97 Communications Ltd (OCL), the parent company of Paytm app, has seen its unified payments interface (UPI) market share drop to nine percent in March, its lowest level in the last four years, according to data available on the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) website. NPCI runs UPI.

In February, it had dropped to 11 percent from the previous month after RBI's crippling restrictions on its associate company Paytm Payments Bank Limited (PPBL).

NPCI started sharing UPI apps transaction volume and value from April 2020 and this is Paytm's lowest market share.

The mobile payment app hit by the regulator's action has also seen its transaction value market share drop to 6.7 percent, again lowest in a few years. Paytm had around nine percent market share in value during most months of 2023.

Meanwhile, PhonePe, the market leader, has seen its volume market share cross 50 percent during the last two months. The second placed Google Pay has also seen its market share rise by a couple of percentage points in the last year.

Paytm had around 11-12 percent market share in transaction volume during 2020 and 2021, which the company gradually managed to rise to 13 percent, only to go down to nine percent now. During 2018 and 2019, the company had close to around 40 percent market share in UPI.

However, it focussed on wallets, which in hindsight has proven costly, while PhonePe and Google Pay ran away with UPI crown.

Paytm's UPI market share dropped to 11 percent in February compared to the 11.8 percent the company had in January before the payments bank crisis started.

From March 15, Paytm has been functioning as a third-party application provider (TPAP) just like its competitors PhonePe and Google Pay. And not as a payments bank app, which it was until then. The transition has likely resulted in this drop in market share.

Paytm has roped in Axis Bank, Yes Bank, SBI and HDFC Bank as its payment service provider (PSP) banks to be its partners in the TPAP service. PSP banks connect the UPI apps with the banking network. For Paytm it was PPBL until now.