PhonePe and Google Pay together handled roughly 80% of UPI transactions in March, a concentration that has prompted Amazon Pay, Meta’s WhatsApp and other platforms to press India’s payments regulator. Executives from Amazon Pay, WhatsApp, CRED, MobiKwik and Flipkart’s Super.money were due to meet the National Payments Corporation of India on Thursday to raise concerns. They plan to push for limits on user onboarding, tighter controls on use of contact data and fair access to features such as autopay and payment mandates. Smaller rivals say a delayed 30% market-share cap until December 31, 2026 has allowed the largest apps to entrench their lead.

The dispute centres on India’s Unified Payments Interface. The system carries billions of instant transactions each month. This National Payments Corporation of India operates UPI under the supervision of the Reserve Bank of India.

The size of the dominant apps is stark. PhonePe and Google Pay together accounted for about 80% of the 22.6 billion transactions on UPI in March. PhonePe has said it now has more than 700 million registered users and 50 million merchants. It also reported acceptance across more than 98% of India’s postal codes, a reach rivals say is hard to match.

Who is meeting NPCI

Executives from Amazon Pay, WhatsApp, CRED, MobiKwik and Flipkart’s Super.money were scheduled to take part in talks with the NPCI on Thursday. They join other smaller players who have voiced frustration at the concentration of transaction volume in two apps.

The meeting agenda shows participants intend to raise a list of issues. They plan to challenge certain user-acquisition tactics. The group will question how large apps use contact lists and other on-device data when onboarding customers. The group also want more equitable access to platform features such as autopay and payment mandates. And they will press for incentives and regulatory measures to help emerging players expand.

What the challengers are arguing

Smaller platforms say the current balance of power makes it expensive and slow to grow. They point to reach and scale as the barrier. PhonePe’s merchant footprint and Google Pay’s user numbers are often cited.

Smaller rivals say those metrics let the biggest apps shape product design and payment flows.

They argue that some onboarding practices lock users into a single app early. And they say features that require deep integration, autopay for bills, recurring mandates, are being rolled out in ways that favour the market leaders. The challengers want the NPCI to make access to those features fairer. They want limits on how platforms use contact data to invite or convert users.

One item on the agenda is requests for incentives. Smaller firms want regulatory support that helps them acquire users and build product parity. They want the NPCI to consider technical and commercial rules that prevent a handful of apps from capturing new users by default.

Mastheads

Regulatory trade-offs

The NPCI faces a difficult choice. It runs the payments rails relied on by hundreds of millions. Any rule that restricts how large apps operate risks disrupting services used every day by consumers and merchants. The body must weigh the costs of intervention against the market distortions challengers describe.

India previously considered a cap that would have limited any single UPI app to 30% of transactions. That plan was delayed and the cap was pushed back to take effect after December 31, 2026. The deferral has left PhonePe and Google Pay free to maintain and grow their current volume. The result is a concentrated market that smaller firms say leaves them fighting for share on uneven ground.

NPCI operates under the Reserve Bank of India’s supervision. Officials have signalled caution about imposing measures that might harm user experience or interrupt payments. At the same time, the regulator needs to respond to competition concerns that have been growing inside the ecosystem.

Product design and data access

Contested technical issues include how apps onboard customers and whether contact lists can be used to seed networks. Startups argue that default pathways steer users to the apps that already have the most friends and merchants inside their networks. They say that amplifies first-mover advantages.

Access to features is another battleground. Autopay and mandate processing are becoming central to recurring revenue and stickiness. The challengers want clear, rules-based access so those features don't end up as gatekept capabilities for the largest platforms.

The agenda seen by participants includes proposals to limit aggressive onboarding and to offer parity in API-level access. It also asks the NPCI for incentives to offset the higher costs smaller firms face when trying to scale to the same merchant or geographic breadth as the market leaders.

UPI has transformed retail payments in India over the past few years. It has moved vast volumes from cash and cards into instant, bank-to-bank transfers mediated by apps. A few apps captured network effects early. They then invested in merchant acceptance and app features that kept users inside their ecosystems.

The policy idea of a market-share cap was designed to blunt those network effects. The cap would have limited how much of the UPI flow a single app could control. That rule has been delayed until the end of 2026, however, and the pause has become a rallying point for smaller rivals who say more immediate action is needed.

PhonePe and Google Pay remain the biggest players by transaction share. PhonePe’s user and merchant numbers are frequently cited to explain its edge. Smaller firms say rapid merchant onboarding and wide geographic coverage keep switching costs high for both consumers and sellers.

Big tech platforms joining the complaint adds weight. Amazon Pay and WhatsApp can invest at scale.

Their involvement signals the issue goes beyond startup gripes. It shows established global players also see limits in the current market structure.

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The group is urging the NPCI to consider measures that curb dominant apps' onboarding practices and guarantee fair access to features ahead of the 30% cap taking effect on December 31, 2026.

This article was created with AI assistance.