In Fierce UPI Fight, Fresh Faces Gain Some Ground
Newer
Unified Payments Interface
(UPI) apps such as Flipkart-backed Super.Money, Navi, Bhim, and Cred are increasing their share in the payment market amid a spike in UPI transactions, luring consumers with
cashback offers
and other incentives.
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The newer entrants have grown their collective share to around 4% in March 2025, up from 2.3% in October 2024 and negligible a year earlier, according to data released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which runs the UPI network. Even so, PhonePe and Google Pay continue their domination, holding on to a combined market share of 82%—47% and 35%, respectively—in the last two months, the data showed.
'The newer apps are not offering pure-play payments; they are going beyond that with credit, ecommerce, and bill payments,' said Rohan Lakhaiyar, partner at Grant Thornton Bharat. 'UPI is their customer acquisition hook, and it seems to be working,' he said.
Navi is focused on consumer lending, Cred is expanding unsecured loans and bill payments through Bharat Connect, and Super.Money is binding itself into Flipkart's ecommerce ecosystem.
These firms are offering cashbacks and other incentives to move consumers away from their preferred apps at a time when the growth rate of UPI has slowed down. The payment network grew about 36% in 2023 and 2024, down from around 54% growth in 2022, albeit on a larger base, ET reported on April 7.
Currently UPI is estimated to have more than 200 million active users.
While Super.Money is offering up to 5% cashback on every UPI transaction, Navi is positioning UPI payments as a 'rewarding' experience, bundling features such as buy-now-pay-later through Navi Trezo. Cred had until recently promoted cashbacks for every Cred UPI transaction.
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