The unicorn of the financial industry, PhonePe, has formally opened its payment gateway in an effort to grow into larger offline and online retailers, including small and medium-sized businesses. With this addition, the fintech company's reliance on external payment gateways for in-app payments is no longer necessary. 

 

With its most recent offering, Paytm and Pine Labs, which have strong offline presences, as well as Razorpay and Cashfree Payments, which have strong online presences, compete with the Walmart-backed digital payments app. 

 

In 2012, Paytm, a competing payment app to PhonePe, introduced its own gateway.

 

Other companies in the sector, meantime, are thinking about implementing an omnichannel strategy and providing gateway services to both online and offline retailers. Plural, Pine Labs' own online payment gateway, was released. Mswipe will shortly follow. Pine Labs is the market leader and point-of-sale payment provider offline. In contrast, Razorpay purchased Ezetap last year in order to diversify into the offline sector.  

 

The company does not, however, give precise information regarding traction or goals.

 

The 450 million registered users of PhonePe, which includes physical retailers, now have access to a new service: a payment gateway. This includes account aggregation, stockbroking, wealth management, finance, and a shopping app (Pincode) built on the Open Network For Digital Commerce (ONDC).

 

PhonePe is awaiting RBI certification after receiving preliminary approval for payment aggregator services. It stated last week that its fully owned subsidiary, PhonePe Technology Services, will begin offering account aggregator services.

 

Payment gateway (PG) services are now offered free of charge. Over 35 million offline businesses in Tiers II, III, IV, and higher are said to have been digitalized by the corporation, covering 99 percent of the country's pin codes.