PhonePe pulls ahead of GPay in March UPI race; CRED slips to 7th spot

The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) recorded a robust 13.6% growth in transaction volume in March, reaching 18.30 billion transactions, according to data released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).

While the top five UPI apps — PhonePe, Google Pay, Paytm, Navi, and Super.money — retained their positions, CRED dropped to seventh place, overtaken by Axis Bank. This marks a continued decline for CRED, which had already fallen from the top five in February when Super.money surpassed it.

Axis Bank climbed ahead of CRED by processing 125 million B2C (business-to-customer) transactions in March. These transactions include payouts such as refunds, salaries, and cashback distributed by businesses to customers.

PhonePe maintained its dominance with a commanding 47.25% market share by volume, processing 8.64 billion transactions. Google Pay followed with 36.04% share, handling 6.59 billion transactions. Combined, the two platforms accounted for over 83% of UPI transaction volumes.

Paytm held the third position with a 6.67% share, processing 1.22 billion transactions.

In terms of transaction value, PhonePe led again with a 50.76% market share, processing over ₹12.57 lakh crore, while Google Pay followed at 34.99%, processing ₹8.66 lakh crore.

Despite a modest 0.79% volume share, CRED remained a high-value platform, contributing ₹55,091.22 crore, or 2.22% of total transaction value, underscoring its strong appeal among high-value users.

Other platforms like Amazon Pay, ICICI Bank, and Axis Bank continued to serve niche segments with comparatively smaller volumes and values.

In a noteworthy policy move, the Indian government has sanctioned a ₹1,500 crore incentive scheme aimed at promoting digital payments among small merchants via the BHIM-UPI platform.