PhonePe has announced an IP acquisition of conversational engagement platform Gupshup's proprietary 'GSPay' technology stack for enabling UPI-based payments for feature phones. GSPay is mobile app on top of NPCI's UPI 123PAY solution, designed specifically for non-smart phones users.
- PhonePe acquires Gupshup’s GSPay technology stack to launch UPI-based payments for India’s large feature phone user base.
- New UPI 123PAY mobile app from PhonePe will enable P2P transfers, QR payments, and full digital payments interoperability for feature phone users.
- With over 600 million users, PhonePe aims to bring 24 crore+ feature phone users into the Indian digital payments ecosystem.
According to PhonePe, they plan to modify and enhance the GSPay IP they have acquired and be able to launch their own feature-phone-based UPI payment mobile app on new feature phones in India, in the coming quarters.
They intend to provide all the base UPI features like P2P transfers, offline QR payments and receiving of money from any other UPI customer to their mobile numbers or self-QR, as impulsively and coherently as possible.
The goal is to create full payment interoperability for feature phone users and smartphones, while bringing crores of Indians still using feature phones into the Indian digital payments ecosystem.
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PhonePe's various businesses include distribution of financial products (insurance, lending, and wealth) and new consumer tech businesses (Pincode and Indus AppStore). Market research states, India's feature phone user base stood at approximately 24 crore users in 2024, with an estimated approximately 15 crore new feature phone shipments over the next five years.
PhonePe has over 60 crore (600 million) registered users on its platform and a digital payments acceptance network at more than 4 crore merchants. It is processing more than 33 crore transactions daily with an Annualized Total Payment Value (TPV) of more than Rs. 150 lakh crore, it continues to lead India’s digital payments revolution.
“This segment of users has been historically underserved by the digital financial industry and the broader startup ecosystem. We hope we can enable crores of these feature phone customers to participate in India’s burgeoning digital payments market,” said Sameer Nigam, co-founder & CEO of PhonePe.
