with payment through various is i app like google pay, PhonePe And Paytm Fast becoming the norm of the day, regulators and even lawmakers are becoming wary of a strong monopoly in the market and that too of foreign-owned entities.

As per the latest data of National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which is insisting on limiting each player’s market share to 30%, there were more than five dozen unified payment interface (UPI) apps were registered in the country at the end of June 2022. In all, they did 5.8 billion transactions during the month with a total value of over Rs 10 lakh crore.

However, the top two players – Walmart-owned PhonePe and Google’s G-Pay – accounted for more than 81% of the total volume and about 84% of the value.

Including Paytm, the share of the top three players rose to 96 per cent.

Amazon Pay, another overseas player that typically falls in the top five, is also looking to aggressively expand its market, but commands around 1% for now. Same is the case with WhatsApp as of now.

Several MPs, including some MPs from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said that they plan to take up the issue Parliament During the ensuing monsoon session and in the meetings of the respective parliamentary panels.

None of them agreed to reveal their identities, saying that a formal stand has not yet been taken by their respective parties in the matter.

While market players need to reduce their market share within the regulatory threshold of 30% by January 2023, some are already working hard to extend the deadline.

Lawmakers said it is not a good idea for a few players to dominate this important market, and even more so, not when dominated by foreign entities as there could be systemic risks.

According to NPCI data, initially the situation was not like this.

In the first quarter of the financial year 2016-17, since the data is available, all the top five players had a market share of 9-10%. This began to change from the latter quarter itself, with two of them achieving more than 15%. By the fourth quarter of that year, the top player had more than 45% and the second had 35%.

In the third quarter of the subsequent year, the top player had gained over 61%, although this soon fell and remained in the range of 33–36% till the second quarter of 2019-20, again rising to over 40%. Before now for several quarters.

An MP, citing NPCI data, said the top two companies together have been controlling more than 80% of the market share for a long time.

In the UPI ecosystem, the rules are still evolving and are mostly based on compliance with sponsor banks.

NPCI came out with standard operating procedures for UPI apps in March 2021, in which it called for a 30% volume market share cap for players to even out distribution among participants.

stay high technology And Startup News that matters. to subscribe Get the latest and must-read tech news in our daily newsletter, delivered straight to your inbox.