The National Payments Corporation of India ( NPCI ) has decided to delay the enforcement of a payment market share cap on UPI until 31 December 2024. The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is the payments body that oversees the Unified Payments Interface payments network.

Its representatives revealed that the delay is necessary to ensure existing players have enough time to comply with the rules. NPCI officials cited by techcrunch. com highlighted the importance for existing and new players to scale up their consumer outreach for the growth of UPI in the context of the significant potential of digital payments and the need for multi-fold penetration from its current state.

The NPCI’s initial plan was to enforce the market cap rules in January 2021, but the timeline has been pushed back several times since then. The original idea behind the market cap enforcement was to protect the UPI ecosystem as it scales and to address any risks associated with it. Moreover, the initial plan was to limit any single payments app from processing more than 30% of UPI transactions in a month.

What does this mean for Google Pay and PhonePe? As PhonePe and Google Pay command over 80% of the UPI market share according to techcrunch. com, the delay in the market cap enforcement is seen as a win. However, rivals such as Paytm were hoping that the NPCI would introduce the limitations sooner or at least settle on a final timeline.

PhonePe representatives cited by the same source revealed that the company opposes the idea of a check on the market cap as market participants have no way of reducing their own market share without actively denying service to customers. The officials highlighted that, in order for PhonePe to comply with a market cap check, it would have had to deny UPI services to tens of millions of Indians. More information about UPI According to the NPCI, the Universal Payments Interface is a system that powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application.

It merges several banking features, as well as seamless fund routing and merchant payments into one package. This peer-to-peer payments infrastructure was built by large banks in India and is backed by the Indian government. According to techcrunch.

com, the UPI has become the most popular digital payment method in India in recent years, as it processed more than 7. 3 billion transactions in October 2022, up from 4. 2 billion in October 2021.

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